Geminar 4 Answer
by AztecPrince0523
Summary: War is coming to Geminar and only one young man can stop it. The Goddesses have already chosen their champion to save the world, but what if their chosen needs a little help? Enter Darien, a young Lynx from another wartorn and ravaged world, and his small team of friends as they join the chosen one to save Geminar. Armored Core 4 Answer Tenchi Muyo War On Geminar
1. Chapter 1

Standard Disclaimer here. i do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. this is a work of fanfiction. the previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 1 The Beginning of an Answer.

"Get out now! Thats an order!" I could hear Serene yelling in my ear as I overboosted to get out of the Cranium, my mission complete. three wrecked ACs far behind me now as I rushed to get out. I still felt the bitter betrayal of Thermidor in my heart, burning away at me in my anger. The Cranium collapsed all around me as explosions went off behind me, getting louder and bigger, the more time passed. I had destroyed the last Arteria at a heavy cost. My AC, Insanity, was heavily damaged, that was to be expected after what I had just gone through, the hardest fight I had ever fought against former allies. Wynne... I'm sorry, I wish things could have been different. Roy...You were a cocky son of a bitch, but you were alright. Thermidor...Otsdarva... Fucking traitor, my father should have finished you instead of letting you sink...

"In...ity...anity...Insanity come in!" I could hear the static on the comms as a voice tried to break through. The interference from the Cranium almost fried everything except for my hard link between myself and my operator and short comms. I readjusted the frequency until it came in clear as a bell, though that was probably because I was almost out as well. "Damn it Dare, where are you?! Come in!" now that I could here the voice, a woman's voice, I finally let a smile grace my face a little as I regonized the voice and knowing full well my remaining friends and allies wouldn't leave me behind.

"May, this is Dare, I am almost out. see you in a few...though I might need a little assistance once I get out...not sure how much longer my NEXT is going to hold up..." It was May "Smiley" Greenfield. probably my closest friend and ally next to my father who retired after we had defended Line Ark almost a year ago. once upon a time i had thought that THAT would have been my hardest fight.

"Savage Beast is in the field! This Beast will knock you out right good! Dare i expect a good payday for this! mopping up a bunch of normals? who do you think you're talking to? " At that i rolled my eyes though i was chuckling in amusment at Canis. another good friend and a hell of a fighter. one of few who came with me to Orca though, like the others, not an Orca member himself. i could hear the occasional explosion outside along with the telltale sound of a SULTAN plasma cannon sounding off. it sounded like Mrs. Theresia was having the time of her life for an easy paycheck. she didn't talk much but for whatever reason she had taken a liking to me and assisted in my training when Miss Haze was busy. having a veteran, and an Original at that, was nice when you needed advice and tactics.

I finally shot out of the Cranium. the filters on screen kicking in quickly as I surveyed the area, it was pure carnage with all the NORMAL wrecks and the weapon emplacements that were destroyed. My friends had kept the cannon fodder from getting in while I completed my mission. The last thing I needed was some NORMAL getting in and taking a cheap shot when I wasn't looking. I only had a few rounds each left in my SIRIUS laser cannon and my TRAVERS grenade cannon and about half of my MOTORCOBRA, and thankfully my MOONLIGHT was undamaged. I wasn't good for anything more than a light NEXT at worse, my boosters were damn near fried and my legs and arms had half of their mobility. not to mention I was over ninety percent damaged. I almost didn't make it. I got a lucky shot at the last second before Otsdarva could finish me off. I wish I could have seen his face when that TRAVERS round ripped his NEXT in half.

May in Merrygate skated over to me while Canis in Savage Beast and Mrs. Theresia in Karyon mopped up the stragglers and cleared a path for us. Wynne left a parting souvenir gash on my leg before my MOONLIGHT cleaved her in two and now, finally, my NEXT's left leg finally gave out. Merrygate caught my left arm and threw it over her shoulder and started skating after Savage and Karyon as they took point Canis being a two legged medium was faster and shot ahead to scout while Theresia stayed close by to handle any surprises though after what I faced in the Cranium I highly doubted that anything else that was that big of a threat would be in the area.

May was unusually quiet, normally she was very cheerful bright and friendly, though I could think of why. she was afraid I might have bought it in the cranium when she over heard Miss Haze on the comms. We needed to get back to our bunker so I could send orders to the regular troops of Orca to get the anti-satellite batteries charging and to start leaning on various scientists and engineers to start working on designing and building ships to get mankind off the poisoned Earth as soon as the Assault Cells had been cleared enough to give them a clear shot to outer space. Savage was waiting for us when we finally got to our NEXT transport trucks. He kept overwatch while we loaded our NEXTS before he climbed on the back of my truck. I drove the largest of them to be able to carry our NEXTs while one of us was on lookout detail. After a few checks we hauled ass out of there heading straight back home to our hidden bunker near Old Peace City, one of a few that Orca had that were basically small cities. we needed resupply and Insanity needed heavy repairs.

We had driven for a few hours before we had finally reached our base. The bunker doors opened up as we approached, May went in first and I followed second with Canis, and Theresia followed behind us, once all trucks were inside the doors closed and the bunker garage started purging the Kojima particles and cleaning the air while we parked the trucks and unloaded our cores for repairs and resupply. Insanity certainly looked like it needed a lot of new parts, I was just glad that it got me out of the Cranium. As the greenlight came on above the doors giving the all clear for sterile air we started pulling off our CBR gear and packed it up, NORMALs moved the carts that had our NEXTs over to the R&amp;D compartments. Serene coming down one of the lifts from the cat walks from the control rooms. I was the last Surviving Orca Lynx. They had plenty other NORMAL and MT pilots as well as large teams of scientists and engineers. All from different backgrounds from the League. While my friends and allies helped me in my missions they themselves were not members of Orca. I paid them well which is why they helped me. That and the fact that after convincing them that the human race was doomed if we didn't do something to get off the planet. We at least needed to have the option to look to the stars for a future. Serene Haze walked with purpose over to us. A middle aged woman of asian descent, proud and stern., a powerful veteran Lynx and definately not a push over.

"So you finally made it back, good work out there. We have seen your Answer. The head engineer has already ordered replacement parts and repairs, they really did a number on the Insanity didn't they? You're lucky to have made it out alive, and don't worry about the rest of Orca. They have already accepted you as their new leader since they learned of Thermidor's betrayal. All his funds and equipment has been transfered to you so that should help with some of the repairs to your NEXT, the same goes for the rest of the Orca Lynx, any and all funds and parts have been transfered to your ownership."

And typically, Miss Haze was all business as usual, though I could see some of the workers smirking high up and snickering which got her attention and they shut up. I could guess why though. While she put on a strong front right now she was probably frantic with worry in the control room during the mission since she could see everything from the cameras on Insanity.

She treated me like her own kid most of the time and, while it was annoying at times, I appreciated it because I learned alot from her and she was an excellent Operator. May, Canis and Theresia were waiting for me patiently... Kinda... I don't know why but Theresia had Canis in a headlock and was slowly choking him and May was, naturally, laughing her ass off. He had probably said something to set her off so this was not a rare sight.

Theresia was about the same age as Miss Haze, she had straight brown hair that went down to her upper back in a french braid. Rather cool brown eyes and thin rimmed glasses, she looked rather proper and classy though that shouldn't fool you. She had a temper and was not above giving you a smack if you ticked her off. I would say she looked like a hot older librarian though I would never say it to her face, Canis on the other hand, didn't know how to keep his mouth shut. Hence, the current choke-out session.

Canis had rather unruly dirty blond hair that looked in need of a good combing. He had dark blue eyes and his face was rather proud, or arrogant depending on who you were asking. He was in his mid to late twenties though his personality gave the impression that he was much younger. He was tall, around six foot or so and yet Mrs. Theresia who was a good seven to eight inches shorter at around 5'3", was choking him out. Canis was started to turn blue in the face and May finally decided to get involved by trying to get Theresia to let him go before she killed him. I looked back to Miss Haze as she turned back to me after giving her dirty look to the workers.

"I appreciate that Miss Haze, thank you, god knows I could use the parts and the money will help pay the others. any world on the extra power and resources going to the cannons?" I asked while May finally got Theresia to let go of Canis. Theresia walked off while May was smacking Canis lightly in his face trying to wake him up as he had passed out before Theresia finally let go.

"The engineering department has already stated that they are in the process of transfering power and materials to the anti-satellite batteries. I have already ordered that an engineer team and security force be sent to each battery to get them working as soon as possible. Everything will start tomorrow morning so you should all get some rest. We can discuss other matters in the morning." She had stated and looked down at her PDA checking a few things.

"It is going to be at least a day before Insanity is repaired and re-tuned properly. I suggest maintaining a low profile. If you need to go out I suggest taking one of your spare NEXTs." She said as she looked up from her PDA and looked over to May dragging the unconcious Canis out of the garage by his feet. His head bouncing with a thud off the ground with every step she took while dragging him along.

"Alright, I'm going to get some sleep. Wake me in eight hours, or if anything happens." I said with a yawn before heading for the door that the others disappeared through. heading down the winding halls for my quarters. It was a small room, still, it was bigger than most of the others since I was a Lynx. My room here was rather plain, grey walls and ceilings with a full bed against the wall in the back corner.

A small single drawer night stand with lamp next to it and my desk against the opposite wall. my antique M4 custom built rifle was stripped down on the desk. It a gift from my father, it was had finding the parts for the weapon since it was so old. some of the components cost as much as some of my NEXT parts. next to it was an equally old M1911, both weapons custom built over the years between me and my father. A pair of M48 Tomahawks were leaning against the desk and stabbed into the top was an Ontario MK3 combat knife, a set of weapons I was well versed in, extensively trained by my father and his friends in using all the weapons I currently owned. My father was rather adamant about making sure I could defend myself, in or out of a Next. I had a number of other weapons stored in a foot locker at the end of the bed and in a small chest against the wall a few feet from the nightstand and a few smaller guncases under the bed. I was more a collector than anything, and only a few I had actually used in actual combat.

I stripped out of my clothing tossing them into the hamper in the corner before crawling into bed and shutting out my light. It had barely been fifteen minutes before I heard a soft knock at my door before it briefly opened and then closed. I heard a rustling before a small female body crawled into bed with me cuddling up to my side to which I absent mindedly stroked her hair while I tried to doze off.

"You scared me half to death Dare... Don't ever do that again... Please?" Her soft voice came from the darkness. I felt her nuzzling my neck as I held her to me. knowing who it was. She had been sharing my bed for almost a year now. I smelled her shampoo in her hair as I held her to me stroking her side to sooth her.

"I promise... I will not die so easily..." I said softly in her ear, kissing her gently as she cuddled up closer against me. I didn't get to sleep for another hour, but I didn't care. We were just glad to be alive and together still. I finally fell asleep an hour or so later, not knowing I was going to have a rather odd dream. A "job" rather out of the ordinary. A "job" I couldn't refuse... I just wish I had the option to tell them where to stick it.

So this is my first attempt at fanfiction. I am stuck using wordpad no one to proof read and no way to see roughly how long each chapter will be. Constructive criticism is appreciated so that I may learn and better my writing. Not sure of the direction I'm going to take this. Not sure if I'm going to make this as light hearted as the anime or make it a little more serious or a mix of both with some of my own unique sense of humor. Hope to make it a weekly or biweekly chapters though with work load or possibly writer's block' or my own laziness, who can say? bitches, gripes, complaints? shoot me a message.

update: 22 Jun 2014. just finished rereading the chapter to find any errors I may have missed and sure enough there were plenty so i fixed them and added a little more here and there so this chapter is a little different in places. Going to try to start writing chapter 3 today and if I am hit but a sudden bolt of writing inspiration it may be out today or sometime this week.


	2. Chapter 2

Standard Disclaimer here. I do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. this is a work of fanfiction. the previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 2: The Dreaming of an Answer

As I slept I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that I stood alone, standing on the ruined Spirit of Motherwill. It had been one of my most defining and difficult battles. As I looked down from one of the ruined flight decks I could see the burned out husk of Killdozer, Champion Champs' NEXT. He had been more a distraction than anything during this fight and a potentially deadly one at that, either by his missiles or from the missiles or Normals of the Spirit. I heard the softest whisper of a foot step and spun around quick to face...Insanity... The most powerful NEXT in the world now.

The AALIYAH frame towered over me. When I had designed it, its main color was as black as I could paint it. Its sub coloring was a dark blue and its support and optional colors were an almost blinding white, while its joints and devices on the frame as well as its eye were all bright vivid red. The weapons were all predominately grey and supported by black while the supporting pain was red and then I had touched those off with white. The last components of the Insanity were its stabilizers which were mostly on the head and upper core which were all the large versions of the AALIYAH stabilizers and then I had plasted the large AALIYAH upper leg stabilizers on it and to finish it on the middle and lower parts of the left leg were Akvavit LINSTANT and MADNESS stabilizers. The Insanity was an intimidating sight with its weapons and paint job.

Normally the weapons on it would have made it too heavy to move, however, I had tuned the legs to the max weight they would carry which was why the once speedy AALIYAH frame moved around at about average speed but could carry such heavy and powerful weaponry on its back plus what it held in its hands.

"He is rather beautiful for a weapon is he not?" Came a female voice. a small female came from behind Insanity's left leg. The first thing I noticed was her vived red crab-like hair. she wore odd clothing that I couldn't really describe and as for the woman her self...I knew that she was indeed a woman despite looking like a child. It was in her eyes. " I have to say that as weapons go he is well made and taken care of. I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into perfecting and maintaining him." She said as she looked up at Insanity.*

"Who are you?" Was all I could say seeing as I had no idea how I could dream up someone like this. everything else was easy. It came from my memory of one of my hardest battles starting out as a Lynx. Certainly it wasn't one of my favorites seeing as I actually had to work for it where most of my earlier jobs had been pretty much cakewalk. it was certainly a humbling experience that made me realise not to get full of myself. Being cocky had almost gotten me killed on this mission.

"I am your next client. My cohorts and myself have a job for you, you and your friends. You see, there is a war in the making at your next destination. Normally we wouldn't be involved seeing as we already set our pieces on the board in motion, however, someone else has seen fit to add their own pieces as well and they decided to cheat in this particular game. Therefore, we need to level the playing field back into balance. So we are hiring you and your allies as our equalizers. We, namely me, will provide you with supplies and a base of opperations as well as deal with a few..." She trailed off glancing at my right eye and arm. " 'Upgrades'..." She said with a face that made me, a battle hardened Lynx, want to run for the hills.

Rubbing my right arm nervously not sure if i wanted her anywhere near it. i knew why she looked. while my right arm was hidden beneath a leather shoulder pauldron that connected to a full leather sleeve, that ended in a long leather glove that buttoned to it. Everything made to completely conceal my biotech arm and hand. My eye was harder to hide because the crazy doctor and engineer who worked on it and my arm refused to do anything subtle with replacing them because they wanted them to look 'cool' as they put it. Most of the time my right eye was colored black-red-black. Black pupil, red iris and black scelera. When i was targeting something when i fired right handed it would turn into a red or green crosshair on a black background and when I used the zoom function it turned blue. It could move completely independant of my left eye and that tended to unsettle most people who looked me in the eye which was why I almost always wore a pair of sunglasses to hide my eyes. It didn't inhibit my sight since the biotech eye had various camera settings ranging from normal human sight to multiple IRNV settings. I was predominantly a southpaw however my father and his friends made me train and learn to be ambidextrous.

"What is the job then? What is the pay? Where and when is it?" I had started off asking, cutting straight to business. As weird as this dream was I might as well treat it like a job, at least until I could wake up from it.

She only smiled and tilted her head to look behind me. I hesitated a moment before I looked back and blinked a few times to make sure I wasn't seeing things but I saw my friends and their NEXTS spread out on the flight deck wings of the Motherwill they looked as confused as I did which did not make me feel any better. "The job is to win the war. simple as that. We need you to do what you do best, fight. as for pay. well...I AM the galaxy's greatest genius, so I suppose I could point your scientist and engineers in the right direction to get you off this dying planet." She said looking around at the barren earth around us. " I could give a starting bonus. I will create bunkers and have them delivered here for what is left of humanity to stay in safety and contamination free until your way to space is clear and your ships are built to get humanity off of the poisoned earth. As for you... Well we have no currency that your world regonizes." She said looking at us. Six in total, only two of us were in the in the top ten Collared rankings, one was retired, two were Originals, and two of us were Independent. We were a rag-tag band of Lynx and an operator.

"Then we will have to decline. Altruism will not pay for our repairs, our ammo, our living expenses, or our time. we did what we had to do for humanity to continue and we were paided for it. quite well actually. why should we work for you who cannot afford our services?" I said to the woman crossing my arms in finality, standing by my decision. In any event you cannot expect six Lynx to stand against an army. Numbers will over come even the best over time." I told her rather curtly while she looked at us all.*

"I'm afraid you are already hired, and I have ways to deal with your expenses. I just need you all to be ready tomorrow, and after your mission is done I will return you all home." she said in a sickenly sweet carefree voice and I took a step forward rather irritated.

"Maybe you didn't hear me the first time. So I will say it a little more simply. You can take this job, and stick-" She cut me off as she started walking off not caring what i was saying, and completely ignoring me. "Don't be late tomorrow. you have a war to prepare for today. I suggest you get cracking as soon as you wake up, ta-ta. * she said still cheerful and walked behind Insanity causing me to growl and storm after her but when I got behind Insanity's legs she was gone. I had to blink rapidly for a few seconds trying to figure out what the hell just happened and when I turned around my friends were fading one by one. "what the hell just happened?" I asked the empty air when a sudden loud ringing sounded off and i snapped awake back to reality in my own room. Groaning from just waking up and smacking the Off button on my alarm clock in irritation. Sitting up and rubbing my shoulder looking to the empty place beside me on the ruffled sheets. my bed partner had already left. I set my feet on the floor and held my head in my hands groaning. I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't really a dream and that I, and my friends, were just strong-arm enlisted into a war that was not our own. We needed to get ready. I get the feeling that we have no way of stopping her from getting what she wanted. I just wished I could see her again so i could get my hands around her neck.

Well another chapter down. Had to fight with a bad case of writer's block to get this one going. This story is going to take a different turn than when i started out planning. originally I had planned to set them in the beginning of the series of War on Geminar but realised that it would be ridiculously curbstomp-ish since, in my honest opinion, NEXTs will completely wipe the floor with any sacred mechanoid. So this is going to be set after the end of the anime. Another chapter or two and we will finally be on Geminar. And as to who the mysterious Sixth female Lynx is, I leave up to you readers to figure it out as well as who Darien is paired with. I already have it set but you are welcome to guess. currently designing the main villians and their NEXTs. Got the NEXTs pretty much done, I just need to work on developing the enemy Lynx who are all going to follow a particular theme. However i am open to suggestions for minor and mid-boss villians and or their NEXTS as well as the sacred mecha masters and their mechanoids. Tune in in within the next few weeks to a month and I will try to have the next chapter up. Bitches, Gripes Complaints? shoot me a message. constructive critism would be appreciated. Just don't act like an idiot or i will just block you. Seeya next time.

P.S. Next chapter i might put up Insanity's schematics for anyone who is interested as well as his paint scheme and FRS stats.

P.P.S. almost forgot. will probably explain the story behind Darien's eye and arm and their full capabilities next chapter too...probably...maybe...


	3. Chapter 3

Standard Disclaimer here. i do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. this is a work of fanfiction. the previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 3: The Preparation of an Answer. Part 1

I started off the day with a shower, after last night's antics i needed it to wash off the sweat and stink and refresh myself after that dream. Scrubbing myself down and checking that my biotech arm was clean. The electronics, gears, and pistons were completely exposed to the clean water. The arm and its workings were completely waterproof. They had to be, that was what Abe Marsh and that crazy former Rayleonard engineer, Doc Joe, had designed it to be along with their various tweakings and additions they made whenever they got the chance when they visited, plus whatever they did to my biotech eye. They could no longer work on the right side of my brain, mainly because my father and I told them to go to hell. I had been legally dead when they had first worked on me. Something my father hadn't been happy about after he woke up from his own coma after our battle at Line Ark.

I scrubbed the old scar over my skull where the electronics replacement graft was. between the Kojima poisoning and the chain gun rounds that tore through my core both of Insanity and my own i had been dead for almost two months. life support and a lot of experimental Kojima particle purging and operations brought me back. CUBE's last rounds as my SIRIUS' last shot destroyed him had blown through my Primal Armor and Insanity's armor blowing through my right side, completely destroying my arm, shrapnel destroying my eye and tearing through my brain. Line Ark had sent their NORMALs to pull my father and out of the ocean. my father had been disabled and sunk, but not so low that they couldn't retrieve him. I on the other hand would have sunk but somehow Insanity had grabbed one of the braces and sunk its fingers into the concrete to keep us from sinking. Line Ark's NORMALs had dragged us all back to their main headquarters to protect us and work on our recovery.

The two crazy old men had worked on my legally dead body for those two months. cloning replacement organs or creating new artificial ones such as my lung. To bring me back to life and off life support they had to cut out the truely dead and irrecoverable parts of my brain, and then design the replacement for that part of my brain and then work on connecting it flawlessly to the rest of my brain. They had almost finished when my father had woken up from his coma after a few weeks. He had not been happy the two of them had taken the chance to run their experiments but he knew that they were also the only chance he had of getting me back. He and mama Fiona had watched over me as they worked for those months, working to bring me back to life, and finally after two months of work they had finished and turned off the life support if it didn't work then there was nothing more they could have done.

For a few seconds I was still dead until the graft kicked in and jump started my brain. my body coming back to life. I was alive but it would be another two months before i would wake up, and in that time, Abe and Doc Joe had been busy in that time. designing and building my eye and arm. The way my father put it, they had basically been a couple kids in a candy story since they had a good specimen to work on. My eye had been easy after their work on the electronic brain graft. their work really began on my arm. between working on its design, power supply and their additions which was basically them playing around with what they could do. my arm could easily bend steel and moved just as fast and easily as my normal arm... And then the additions came into play. In my wrist were a few attachments, one was a small single shot firearm with a selection of barrels that were interchangable for various caliburs or gauge which was easy to reload though it was obviously by design a surprise or last ditch weapon. I usually kept it armed for a twelve gauge smooth bore so I could fire shot or rifled slug, since in my mind anything else was a waste when you could only fire a single shot hence, I went for the shot shell. Under my wrist was a small hole for a hidden eight inch blade to pop out.

I had finished my shower and headed out to get dried and dressed. Pulling on a dark blue t-shirt that had a single right long sleeve and a cut off left before pulling up old U.S. Navy surplus digital blue camo pants and pulled on the belt and boots before blousing the legs up tight to the boots with their straps. and then finished with a black leather glove to cover my right hand. I hated it when people stared at my arm, eye or scar so I tied a solid black bandana around my skull and pulled on thin black and silver Oakley sunglasses to hide my eyes. everyone here knew why and didn't say anything, but outsiders would often say a smartass remark, and if i didn't get them, someone in my circle of friends would. It was usually Theresia or Canis, though nine times out of ten it was Theresia.

I stepped out of the room after i finished dressing and headed down the halls making way for the mess hall. walking in I noticed most of my friends were already there along with a few, new familiar faces which surprised me a bit. "Dad? What are you doing here?" I asked as I saw my father. Jason Vega, the legendary Raven/Lynx of Anatolia. He looked up at me smiling and wheeled his chair over to me and pulled me down for a back breaking hug. He was disabled from the waist down since the battle at Line Ark, but his upper strength had not diminished, nor did his pride. He was a strong man and even Canis knew to keep his mouth shut, especially so after the one and only time he cracked a smartass remark at my father after his disability and my father rocked him with a single shot to his temple with a quick fist and Canis had been out like a light, never again had he ever cracked a joke at my father's expense.

"Do I need a reason to see my boy after his victory over the League? You did good boy, any battle you walk away from is a victory, and you finished what we started long ago at Line Ark. I am very proud of you Dare." my father told me still smiling as he let me go after trying to break my back. Mama Fiona stood up from her chair and came over for a hug. she was small compared to me and my father so my hug for her was firm but not breaking.

"I am glad you won. You have made us both proud. We have a gift for you but it can wait for later. I am sure you are hungry so lets eat.* Mama Fiona said as she, my father and I headed back for the table. I sat down across from them and finally noticed who was sitting next to my father and step mother and I immediately groaned in displeasure. It was Abe Marsh and Doc Joe. I sat between May and Canis with Theresia sitting to his left.

"They showed up sometime last night after you went to bed." Said Theresia as she munched on some turkey sausage and washed it down with her coffee. she prefered it black and she was not a person to be around without her morning coffee. "We felt it best not to wake you. It could wait till morning. You needed your rest..." She continued as she sipped at her coffee. She certainly didn't talk much and when she did, it was always to the point.

"Where is Lily?" I asked looking around the table not seeing her around in the hall anywhere. She usually ate with us but she wasn't here this morning with everyone like she usually was.

"She ate earlier this morning and left to work on her NEXT. She said she needed to get it ready for what was to come." May said as she sipped on her orange juice. She didn't have a plate infront of her which told me she must have ate already with Lily this morning. Her short green hair hung just above the collar of her green jumpsuit. She really loved green and that should have been obvious from her NEXT down to her clothing. After her statement she gave me a look. A look echoed by Canis and Theresia which told me all I needed to know to truely confirm what I had dreamt last night had not truely been a dream and we were probably all going to work on our NEXTs as soon as we all finished breakfast.

My father looked at us as we looked at each other seeing us a little more solemn than usually considering our various personalities. "Dare, as soon as we finish lets get cracking on your NEXTs. Like Fiona said, we have some gifts for you to use." He said as he started eating, eating quick so we could get to work. I had a feeling that he knew about my dream which was why he came. Then, unfortunately, Doc Joe finally spoke.

"We need to do a tune up on your arm and eye, just need to make a few small improvments to the workings to increase their effectiveness. and after that you will be good as new. Better than new in fact." He said with while looking at my arm alongside Abe. This only made me groan with displeasure as it meant I would have to sit under their care until they were done and gave my father a dirty look while he looked at me and shrugged apologetically. They would never have come if he didn't allow them to tag along, so all I could do was eat quickly so we could get it over with and I could get to work.

After breakfast I had to sit through two hours of Abe and "Mad" Doc Joe as they fiddled with the equipment they brought with them in one of the labs. Replacing a few parts with upgrades and brought out a new attachment to replace my current single shot firearm hidden weapon and gave me a large case with various tools and mods for it. Thankfully it wasn't as painful a process as I thought it would be and i practically ran like hell as soon as they were done fiddling with my eye upgrading some of the camera settings, targeting and zoom functions. they had, as they had every time they saw me, asked to work on the electronics in my brain and, like every time before, I told them to go to hell before I ran off.

I jogged to the garage where everyone had been working on their NEXTs along side my father who gave them a few pointers and upgrading their FRS memory circuits to better tune their NEXTs as well as trade some of their weapons for newer, more powerful ones and placing stabilizers to handle the changes in balance for their NEXTs to handle the new upgrades and modifications. A team of engineers and mechanics were working hard and fast on repairing what could be fixed and replacing what could not for the Insanity. Insanity was in bad shape but certainly was looking better as they worked on it. The weapons were all on racks close to Insanity fully reloaded and respeced for optimal performance ready to be reattached as soon as the mechanics were finished.

My father was helping May retune Merrygate after convincing her to trade her two arm weapons. She traded her GAN02-NSS-WR rifle for the GAN01-SS-WGP wrist mounted gatling gun and traded her GAN01-SS-WB bazooka for the bigger and beefier WBP model. Close to her work station I could see two large GAEN01-SL-WH hand guns for her hanger weapons for when her main weapons ran out of ammo. Canis was in the cockpit of Savage Beast testing the tuning and how it felt with the new weapons he had installed on it out of our very large collection of parts and weapons. He had traded his MP-0601JC PM missiles for the more powerful DEARBORN03 VTF missiles and traded his LR04- AVIOR for a HLR09-BECRUX, and I could see that he had opted for a right handed SOLO plasma rifle and EB-0700 blade as a back up for his left hand. It would seem they were all favoring getting backup weapons now since their tuning allowed for it and they were certainly going to need them.

Theresia looked as if she didn't change much on Karyon. I could see she finally changed the BISMUTH for the ZINC vertical Kojima missiles. and adding the EUPHORIA PA molder shoulder part. Her philosophy had always been overwhelming force at cost of ammo. She was heavily armored and not to mention more agile than most heavy weights, making her a danger to anyone who was not as heavily armored as she was. even more so after her recent work.

As I kept looking around I was surprised to see Miss Haze working on her NEXT, Ciliegio, next to Mama Fiona. She was taking off the railguns and traded them for an AVIOR for her right hand and a HLR01-CANOPUS for her left and switched out her MEDUSA AS Missile for a higher capacity LAMIA, and added an EB-0700 blade for her left arms hanger. She already had a SPICA pulse gun for her right hanger so the blade surprised me, but just maybe after she had seen me with mine she felt that it was worth having one even as a backup weapon though I could see she upgraded her generator to an ARGYROS to give her the extra power she would need. Where her NEXT was a mild threat before, now it was a lot more dangerous.

I walked along checking on my number of spare NEXTs I had built though i rarely used them except to play around with when i got bored. most of them set with parts of the company that made them though a few were certainly a little strange with a mixture of frame parts. all of them except for Insanity were under large heavy tarps. I started walking over to a familiar 063AN frame as the crane system was setting a 0700 blade and GAEN01 hand gun into the right and left hangers respectfully. A tiny blond female with a long tightly braided tail down her back was facing away from me looking at the BFF NEXT in front of her as she worked on the new additions, not changing anything else for the Ambient. " Morning Lily. still tweaking Ambient?" I asked as I walked up behind her looking up at Ambient. tall, proud and graceful.

"Affirmative Dare, it needs a few adjustments but it is ready for combat." She told me in her soft voice with a quiet grace and regality befitting her family's illustrious name. Lilium Wolcott. She left the BFF and League for me. we had faked her death at the battle of the anti-satellite cannons, and I pulled her out of the almost completely destroyed Ambient into Insanity. I had to change out the single person core for a two seater for that mission which slowed me down considerably but it had been worth it. She had transfered everything she wanted or needed to us in small shipments so as not to draw attention and when she finally had the opportunity she took it. All she had left was a large duffle which she brought with her into Insanity during the mission. We had to drag the half wrecked Ambient back later and got it repaired quickly. She didn't go out after her betrayal for fear of being regonized. She stayed and helped Miss Haze in the control room most of the time as well as using some of her descreet connections in BFF to get us supplies and parts.

"You know Lil you need to learn to relax a little more..." I said to her jokingly with a smile as I stood next to her looking up at Ambient and down to her. her hand slowly inching away from her control board to find its place in my artificial hand. she didn't balk at the damage done to me. she still cared for me even after the disfiguring injuries. it was hard finding a girl like that nowadays. she wasn't much younger than me, and we had been quite close ever since I punched Ostdarva in the face for picking on her back at the Collared facility. none of us liked the little prick or his little butt buddy CUBE. it had been fun beating the slimy little bastard three separate times. once in the Collared simulator, once at Line Ark and finally the final battle between us at the Cranium.

"I know Dare, old habits are hard to break. I was brought up a little more proper than you and our friends. It is going to take time speaking as you do." She said looking up at me and tilted her head and smiled sweetly up at me. All i could do is smile back at her as i held her hand gently in my biotech hand. Careful not to squeeze to hard so I didn't break her hand. " How is the Insanity? Are they making progress on restoring it?" She asked and finally turned to look around to take in her surroundings, looking at Insanity as the engineers and mechanics swarmed over it like ants repairing and replacing all the damaged parts.

" About as well as you'd expect. Thankfully we have all the parts on hand that are needed. Insanity looks like death warmed over now but we have been through worse after all." I said with a chuckle as she let go of my hand and i brought it up. It was a clear reminder that nothing was as bad as this particular injury.

"Well when you put it that way." She said as she smiled and turned back to her work station and continued tuning her NEXT and working out any bugs and hiccups in the operation systems that occasionally happened. I had walked off to start working at my own station in front of Insanity. I had my own work to do on the systems which was something I could work on while the mechanics worked on Insanity. I had a lot of work ahead of me, as we all did so it would be best if I started working now. I could worry about Dad and Mama Fiona's gifts later. Right now Insanity's systems needed work and we needed all the time and preparation we could get. I needed to get this done as soon as possible and spend what little time i had left with my father and step mother. We only had a day to get this done. I just wished that we had more time. Actually i wished we didn't have to do this at all but we didn't have much of a choice. I put all my focus into my work. If I was going to get dragged into a war, I was going to make sure I was ready for it.

Well chapter three is a go and been writing it for about 11-12 hours now. the urge hit and I couldn't just stop. Well now the reveal of who Dare is paired with and who the mysterious sixth Lynx was. I had originally planned for it to be May however for some reason as I played it out through my head during the last week or so of planning it had somehow switched to Lilium. While May is one of my favorite characters in the game for some reason I just fell for the idea of Lilium. I am constantly refering to the armored core wiki and the game itself to make sure I don't screw too much with most of the canon as well as get other inspiration and ideas. i didn't get around to putting up the Insanity's schematics and FRS stats this chapter so maybe next chapter as well as the newly upgraded ally NEXTs. Next chapter should finish off the day of preparation and we will get into Jason's gifts to Darien and possibly how they are getting to Geminar as well as their base of opperations. Constructive criticism is appreciated. just don't be an idiot about it. Bitches, Gripes Complaints? shoot me a message.


	4. Chapter 4

Standard Disclaimer here. i do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. this is a work of fanfiction. the previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 4: The Preparation of an Answer Part 2.

I was busy fiddling with the wiring in the cockpit of Insanity after spending a few hours working on its OS and replacing the booster systems with fresh, brand new parts, wincing from the occasional zap from the electronics while replacing or repairing the wires. I was trying to ignore Canis who was being as annoying as possible trying to get my attention He was calling my name repeatedly varying between Dare and Darien back and forth. Basically in the same fashion from some annoying little kid bugging his mother from an ancient show that he liked to watch reruns of. I was in the middle of reattach the wires to a component of the AMS system when I heard him say the one nickname that I hated above all else and he damn well knew it. It was the fastest way to piss me off.

" FRANKENSTEIN!" I heard him yell out again. I felt my brow twitch violently and I finally moved moved from my seat and leaning over the edge, glaring down at him seeing him with his stupid grin on his face knowing full well he got under my skin. "What. Do. You. Want..." I said slowly as I felt my eyebrow twitching and could feel a muscle spasm in my left cheek from my irritation. "Lunch!" He shouted with a big grin on his face seeing my face. My other brow twitched as I lifted my right arm and pulled back the sleeve to expose my lower arm. The firearm barrel and workings popping out and ejected the lethal shell that was usually loaded and I reached for one of the shells on my belt pulling out an electric blue colored shell and slid it home listening the gun cock and lock.

Canis' face paled seeing what I loaded and he took off running even before I started talking and sighting in. "you have ten seconds. Ten...Nine..." I started counting down as I steadied my shot as he ran as fast as he could. "Two...One...Fire." the firearm sounded off as it fired the round. It was a advanced version of an old innovation, an XREP. More than three times the range and power of the original with a more recent upgrade of limited tracking ability. the round chased Canis as he hauled ass for the door. It was in vain as the round hit him in the middle of his back and he yelled in pain as he dropped face first, stiff as a board as the electricity flowed into his body. I had armed it to shock for a full minute which he was feeling as I climbed out of the cockpit and down the ladder and over to his twitching body just as the electricity finally stopped. I gave him a swift but light toe kick in his ribs as I passed by feeling much better seeing him twitching in pain.

Insanity still was out of commission and wouldn't be ready until tonight. I walked towards the door to the halls leading into the base and was about to open it. That was until we all heard the warning klaxons sounding off. the red flashing lights lighting up the room I growled and turned around running for the NEXTs, the loudspeakers were down for maintenance so we had no clue what was going on, though we knew that if the red lights went on then we were under attack. Canis had got to his feet as soon as he got the feeling back into his body and the other girls rushed out of the hall door. Mama Fiona was pushing my father in a hurry as Miss Haze was riding the lift up to the catwalks and then ran to the operator control room while Canis, May, Theresia and Lilium ran for their NEXTs. I looked up and down the line of my various NEXTs trying to pick one quickly while Mama Fiona wheeled my father next to me.

"I know you have plenty to spare." My father said as he looked at my NEXTs. I looked down at him as he snorted seeing my confused look turn into disapproval as I understood what he was trying to say as he spoke again to silence me before I got a word out. "I'm crippled boy. Not helpless. Give me something kitted out for long range. The least i can do is give you sniper support" He said looking around, he spotted Eagle, My customized four legged BFF sniper NEXT. A powerful, dangerous threat at range. Perfect for long-range support and certainly capable of delivering a lot of pain before the enemy got anywhere close to him. He suddenly got a big evil grin on his face seeing how it was kitted out, knowing full well that nothing would be able to touch him at the range that it would give him and I had to just shake my head and walk off while Mama Fiona helped him get into the Eagle. I knew there was no point arguing with the man, he was still a fighter even after losing his legs. I moved down the line before finally settling on the Deadly-Light, a Tank legged TELLUS kitted out in the hardest hitting laser weaponry that I could get my hands on and install on it. It was extremely heavy and slow, but the punch it could deliver meant that you had to be suicidal to try at take it head on.

I climbed up into the cockpit of the Light and started warming it up. Setting my hands on the controls and stretching out my psychic control over the NEXT, feeling it answer my touch. I keyed the mic and waited to hear Miss Haze as our NEXTs warmed up for battle. Maintenance half done on them but we had no choice in the matter. The only ones who were truely ready were the Light and the Eagle. The others were mostly combat ready but they couldn't take chances with the maintenance only partially done. The Ambient was probably the one I had to worry about the least since all Lily did was add a couple hanger weapons and while they were not programmed into the NEXT's systems yet, they wouldn't cause any balance issues to worry about.

"Alright, listen up Lynx. Our long range sensors just picked up two fast approaching nexts being followed by what appears to be Omer NORMALS...numbers...over one hundred and fifty. The NEXTS are currently unidentified. Interference from them and the normals are making it difficult to make them out. We are currently countering with long range cannon, ECM and jamming comms but they appear to be heading this way." We could all hear Miss Haze reporting the situation as we prepped. I skated the Light out in front followed by my father while the others followed close behind everyone activating the longest ranged weapons they had to do as much damage as possible before we got in their range.

Personnel cleared the hanger garage or donned CBR while about twenty Solarwinds lined up behind us to give backup as best as they could. We had to put our own CBR gear on while in the NEXTS quickly before the doors opened. The NORMALs skating passed us and taking up positions to cover with long range cannon, sniper or support missiles. before the rest of us skated out. My father in the Eagle moving to sit on a high mound of sand, hunker down and prep the 061 sniper cannon and the cluster missiles, they were the reason whey he had such an evil grin those weapons _hurt_. Ambient moving up to support him as back up. she could provide back up when they got a little bit closer. Merrygate and Beast both moved to the outer defensive line with missiles ready while I skated forward with Theresia by my side. she was currently the only one beside me who could dish out and receive a severe beating. She readied the ZINC missiles and her SULTAN while I fed power to to my laser weapons. Deciding to open up with the BECRUX and ACRUX that I had in my left hand and on my right shoulder respectfully, the SCYLLA missiles on my shoulders ready to do so damage or be a distraction however I needed them. We could hear a little bit of interference on the comms again but knew why as we heard Mama Fiona.

" Approuching NEXTs have been identified. Gachirin and Asterism. Both heavily damaged and both low on ammo and energy." I could hear my step mom's soft soothing voice, she must be in the operator control room with Miss Haze. Good, at least we now had two pairs of skilled eyes and ears. But then I registered what she had said in my brain finally.

"Nidus and Emery? I thought they died on that suicide mission Thermidor sent them on?" I could hear Canis on the comms. for once he was actually keeping his mouth in check and behaving himself. "Apparently not, or they could be impostors keep your guard up." Theresia said calmly as she and I moved ahead and finally saw the two NEXTs, and sure enough it was them. Both of them with boosters half working and hanging onto each other in a vain attempt to increase their booster efficiency. The NORMALs behind them firing with everything they had. Most shots missing thank god but many still hitting them and slowing them down. Our long range assault picking off NORMALs left and right but there was just too many. I boosted ahead with Theresia. Both of us opening fire as we heard the comms crackle again. and I heard a voice I thought I would never hear again.

"About damn time. What took you so long Darien? " I could hear Neo on the comms. they spun briefly so Neo could fire off a shot of the LETHALDOSE and take out about five lined up NORMALs. From the looks of it, it was probably their last weapon that they had since they were carrying nothing else, having dropped everything in exchange for speed. "I hope Thermidor is in there Darien, because when I find him, I'm going to kill him!" Julius Emery yelled over the comms making very clear she was not happy. Alive, but not happy.

"Get behind the line, we can explain our situations later." I ordered them as Theresia fired off her ZINC into clusters of NORMALs to take out as many as possible. Missiles, sniper fire, long range laser fire and long range cannons sounding off behind us, decimating the NORMALs in droves. the support fire gave Theresia and I the room we need to manuever and fight. my laser weapons destroying most of them in a single shot while Theresia constantly switched between her weapons depending on single or groups when we heard Miss Haze on the comms again.

"Warning. Armsforts approaching. two Omer Eclipse. they aren't playing around are they? * Miss Haze almost seemed impressed with the amount of fire power they were sending after two nearly destroyed NEXTs. "They are trying to silence us because we learned the truth, we know about them and Thermidor! * Julius yelled as she and Neo boosted into the bunker while everyone else was letting loose with everything they had. "Keep jamming their comms and signals. We do not want them reporting where we are. Leave no survivors. * I barked out my new orders as I overboosted towards the Armsforts jetting towards us.

"Dare what the hell do you think you're doing?" I heard May yell in surprise as she and rest of them saw me rocket away towards the forts. "Theresia fall back to the others and support them in taking out the NORMALs. I'll deal with the Armsforts." I had to hurry. Those things would decimate our NORMALs and most of everyone's ammo was spent on the attackers. I saw long range lasers fire from the Eclipse' taking out our cannons before they could get a shot off. I heard and saw a sniper cannon firing. My father supporting me with the last rounds of the 061 and firing off the last of his cluster missiles before he over boosted to catch up with me still equipped with the 051 rifle and 067 laser rifle. It wasn't much against an armsfort but the damage from his cannon and missile ought to have softened the one up enough for us to take down though the other was going to be a pain, I had used up most of my ammo on the NORMALs not expecting the armsforts. My father and I circled around under the one firing at it with everything we had. i had to purge the SIRIUS and ACRUX on my back when they came up empty and did the same to the BECRUX after its final round. I still had about twenty shots left in my CANOPUS, my left arm grabbing the Aspina XMG from the hanger compartment and started firing.

DARE, MOVE! Get out of there! * I heard my father yell as the Eclipse we were tag teaming finally was coming down...right on top of me! I over boosted to get the hell out of there while the other Eclipse gave chase firing on my exposed back while my father was trying to get its attention while it hammered away on my backside while I tried to bring the Light around to bear. Firing the last of my CANOPUS rounds and purging it and grabbing my last weapon from the hanger, an AVIOR laser rifle, and started firing. The Eclipse finally got pissed at my dad and spun the laser cannon around and blasted him stunning him and sending a barrage of missiles at him which he faught off with the051ANAM flares while trying to get moving to get the hell out of there.

"This isn't looking good..." He said over the comms as he skated towards me so we could regroup. Firing another shot of flares to distract the missiles. He tried to fire another flare off and would have if the system hadn't jammed. "Definitely not good!" He yelled as we both bolted back for the bunker. The attacking NORMALs were all charcoal thank god but everyone was low on ammo now and sending everying they had at this new and improved Eclipse that was taking everything including the kitchen sink that we could through at it.

"GET CLEAR!" I heard Neo bark as he came back out in Gachirin and fired the LETHALDOSE at the Eclipse. Surprisingly stunning it and then an orange and red blur shot out. Brutus, one of my heavy assault tank NEXTs, laden down with heavy explosive weaponry. "This is for Orca you son of a bitch!" Julius yelled as she fired with all four weapons of Brutus which she was currently borrowing. the LETHALDOSE had softened the Armsfort up for Julius' devastating barrage. YAMAGA grenade cannon, a GA bazooka and gatling gun and the finishing touch of DEARBORN03 missiles. Unleashing everything at once, needless to say that, with that much fire power concentrated on it, the Eclipse buckled and crashed into the sand before exploding. A cheer sounding off on the comms from the NORMAL Orca pilots who had, surprisingly, all survived. I let out a sight of relief while my father skated up next to me. "you did good, Dare. Nice work..." I could hear the pride in his voice. Pride, and relief, that we both made it out alive and in once piece unlike the last time we had fought side by side. We all skated or walked back inside. The Bunker doors closing behind us before the system started purging the Kojima Particles from the air and scrubbed the dirty air into filtered clean air while we moved our NEXTs and NORMALs to the repair docks for repairs and resupply.

"Damage report." I heard Miss Haze call out as we sounded off one after the other. Reporting damage to the frames, ammo consumed and for what weapons. Most of us came out unscathed. Karyon was pitted and burned in some places but otherwise unharmed. Eagle and Deadly-Light on the other hand were not so lucky. We had taken heavy damage, a little over fifty percent and burned out most of our ammo but we had survived. the mechanics and engineers were helping Neo get Gachirin back on its rack. Asterism was already on its own rack but Julius was currently piloting Brutus back to its bay for resupply. "This NEXT handles like a drunk elephant but damn does it bring the boom!" I heard Julius as she both complained about and complimented Brutus sounding rather gleeful. Apparently she liked the feel of all that firepower at her control.

"All in all I think that could have gone so much worse. course we had gloryhog Dare to thank for taking down one of the forts." Canis said and smirked at me. "Alright then you little smartass, you can handle the next Super Eclipse that comes our way." I growled at him as I walked over to where Julius and Neo were. Both of them looked haggard and half starved. it looked like they had run out of their field rations before they had finally found us. "Lets get some food finally. I think it has been a long enough morning. We need to discuss what happened while they were gone and what info they have gathered. I think they might be glad to hear some of our own more recent news... I'm just glad I am not the last Orca..." I said the last bit softly. I had looked up to Neo and Julius. both were skilled and powerful Lynx in Orca and they were the last of the Big Five, the leaders of Orca. I looked over to Eagle seeing Mama Fiona and some of the mechanics helping my father out of the cockpit and into his chair. Lilium walking over to me after she docked Ambient.

"Are you alright? You took a couple of hard hits..." Lilium asked looking up at me, reaching up to touch my shoulder as she looked my body over despite knowing that it would take extremely devastating damage to pierce the core." I'll be fine, Thanks to Neo and Julius we can fight another day." I said looking down at her. While everyone started moving for the hall. Canis was being thoughtful for once, or more likely Theresia threatened him again, but he was helping her get Neo and Julius down the hall. Now that the adrenaline was done flooding their bodies, they were nearly helpless now. "Come on, I'm hungry and I know damn well that you can eat a pig all by your self." I teased her while she hit me hard in my left arm, but it was the truth and she knew it. She ate the most out of all of us and didn't gain a pound on her tiny petite frame. We walked together heading for the mess hall to join the others. I needed to know how Neo and Julius survived. I needed to know what they had learned and I needed to tell them about Thermidor and about our victory, and that they had to handle things while we were gone. I sighed as we walked. We only had half a day left to get ready. We had to make our time count. Time wasn't a luxury we could afford much of right now.

yay chapter 4 is complete and look how long it took. It took me a while to get motivated and break through the brick wall that is writer's block. not to mention having my job and personal life to deal with, so, sorry about the long wait. been working on designing a few of Darien's spare NEXTs as well as designing the frames of his enemies. currently i am in a dilemma on the "final boss" so to speak as to what basic frame he should use as well as weapons. currently in the air are, another Aaliyah, a Lahire, and a powerful eklakh that i just designed recently that is particularly devastating. the final boss will be my choice but i am willing to take suggestions on sub bosses to lead up to that point. so if you have a suggestion. send it in and i may consider it. the final battle is far down the line but it doesn't hurt to start planning now. Bitches, Gripes Complaints? shoot me a message. Just don't be an idiot about it.


	5. Chapter 5

Standard Disclaimer here. i do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. this is a work of fanfiction. the previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 5: The Preparation of an Answer. Part 3

The dining table was covered in plates, the food that previously occupied them were now in the bellies of the two half starved Lynx that I though I would never see again, and still they chowed down on everything put infront of them. Julius in particular was definately gluttonous which made Neo stop and stare for a few moments before he realised he was still hungry and he would continue eating. We had to watch our fingers around them because more than once the two had almost bit one of us whenever one of us reached for a share of food whenever on of them reached for it as well. Of course they knew better then to try it when I reached for food or my father. Me because they knew that trying to bite my right hand would leave them toothless, and my father because they knew that he had no problem hitting either of them. Julius knew him from Joshua O'Brian many years ago, before Omer had blackmailed him into attacking Anatolia, before my father had to kill him and Celo. My father was a respected and feared legend. He was the sole reason Line Ark had lasted so long until our battle against Ostdarva and Cube. Julius had a good memory. She was older than I, but not enough that she was allowed to pilot a NEXT those years ago, had she been, my father might have lost the battle at Anatolia.

"So what happened? Last we had heard, you two had been sent off to attack one of Omer's Arterias and had been killed." I asked them seeing them finally slow done enough so that they would be capable of speech. Lily nudging my right hand towards the bowl of mac and cheese in her "subtle" request for seconds because she didn't want to risk her own hand but she had no problem asking me to risk my own. I sighed and loaded her plate up while she smiled innocently at me while I rolled my eyes.

"Omer happened..." said Neo darkly, munching on a chicken drumstick in his hand. "We arrived and started our assault on the facility. Everything was fine for the first few minutes until we noticed that there were a lot more NORMALs than there were supposed to be stationed there. They just kept coming and then the Arms Forts showed up. More of those Super Eclipse' that you just fought. We had no choice but to fall back. They kept chasing us and we had to hide for the following month traveling between dead cities to get here. We had run out of food a week or two ago and the water recyclers were almost dead." He had told us and Canis gagged and the other girls looked a little green while i tried to keep up a straight face. It was definately a bad sign if they had to start using the recyclers and that they had started going bad. It was something none of us wanted to have to use.

"We had hacked their comms while we were running. Intercepted a lot of transmissions from Omer to the Arms Forts." Julius said as she guzzled down her large glass of soda. " Word from top brass was that they had gotten a tip from their inside man, Ostdarva for the attack. for a while we thought Ostdarva had infiltrated us some how before they brought up earlier this week that Thermidor and Shinkai had been killed by Ostdarva. Somehow Ostdarva knew where they were going to attack. then as we put things together and remembered that Stasis and Unsung looked disturbingly similar and we realized that Thermidor IS Ostdarva." Julius finished both her food and her tale.

"Well we can finish it for you now. Yes Otsdarva is Thermidor, and I think Malzel knew too. Miss Haze figured it out before me but I never thought about it until the Cranium when she called him a traitor. Thats when it clicked. What I think happened, and I'm not completely certain, but my current theory is that he was a schizo. Two personalities. I think, in the end, Ostdarva took control and at Omer's orders, betrayed us to them. he killed Shinkai and then joined Wynne D, probably after feeding her some bullshit line, then I got Thermidor's message. I think it was the last message he sent as purely Thermidor before fully changing back to Ostdarva." I told them, sipping on a powerade as I looked at them as they listened to my theory. "Speaking of which he is dead. I killed him before finishing my mission. He almost took me with him."

They listened intently to my side of things while I finished and leaned back a bit. Everyone having finished their lunch and were relaxing for a bit before whe got back to work. Julius stopped mid chew on a mouthful of chicken as she heard and stayed that way for a few seconds before finishing and swallowing.

"So tell me what exactly went down at the Cranium, you fought Wynne D Fanchon and Ostdarva at the same time?"

She asked trying to get clarification. as to what happened. she and Neo both staring at me. "No, I fought Wynne D, Roy, and Ostdarva. I killed Wynne first, while Roy and Ostdarva were taking pot shots at me, then I took out Roy, by that point I was damaged badly and low on ammo. and finally I fought Ostdarva... while waiting for my FCS to unfry itself because he knocked out my targeting for a good minute. he chased me around the cranium taking shots while I kept trying to slash him until the FCS came back on line, just in time too, he had run out of most of his ammo though I was damn near completely destroyed. I had to let loose with everything I had left." I told them before drinking from my glass of water. Seeing them listening intently, so I finished my story. "We chased each other around the Cranium taking shots here and there doing our best to kill each other, I got lucky in the end. I dodged one of his last laser shots before blasting him in half with the TRAVERS. His Primal Armor was gone thanks to the MOTORCOBRA and he was so damaged from our fight that I saw the top half go one way and the bottom go another. That is the end of Ostdarva." I said while the two of them looked at me with awe and just a hint of fear. I had taken out three of the toughest Lynx of our generation at the same time. much like my father did with Berlioz' elite squad, and the best Lynx from all companies.

"Well that is quite impressive, I'm glad we hired you." We heard an unknown female voice and I turned to my right seeing the red headed crab haired woman. My first instinct was to lash out, Lilium leaned back and shot out her legs to hit the table so she didn't fall back on her head. She was laid straight out while my right arm shot out reaching for the woman's neck...But it went through her and she had that smug smile on her face seeing my anger knowing that I couldn't lay a hand on her.

"What. Are. You Doing. Here?" I asked growling as I brought my hand back and Lily sat up again seeing that I wasn't going to try again, seeing as the first attempt didn't work. A muscle spasm going off in my left cheek and May who was sitting to my left saw it and scooted a little farther away.

"There has been a slight change in plans, you are not leaving tomorrow. I have a project in the works for you all that is taking up much more time than I had anticipated. Perhaps a week at most. you will like my present for your mission." she said while looking at us. I was still bristling in irritation wanting to strangle her for just up and hiring us without us having a say in the matter. More like she was ordering us instead of requesting our aid.

"Darien who is this woman?" Julius asked cautiously after my display of temper. Seeing that I was clearly not happy at all, and neither were my friends. She could see that the woman's presence disturbed us and that I was mad enough to lash out at the sight of her, showing that my temper instantly went up on sight of her.

"Some crazy bitch who is strong arming us into some war she wants us to fight even after we said no..." I said darkly, glaring at the woman while she only had that smug, superior smile on her face.

"Well you are necessary for the battlefield. We need you as our trump cards in the coming war. You are the only ones that I think can deal with the newcomers." She told us as she leaned back. Floating around on a green pillow. " I can't let Kenshi fight this new enemy alone. The boy may be good but he is not invincible and he has never fought this kind of enemy before." She told us as she floated around. Looking over each of us and lingering around me, practically drooling as she stared at me, or more likely, my covered arm, eye and scars on the upper right side of my face and head. Everything kept hidden by the bandana and sunglasses. and my arm covered by the long sleeve and glove. I could hear Lily growling next to me and she wrapped her arms around my waist, cuddling up tight to my side and sticking her tongue out at the strange woman.

"What war are you talking about exactly? Where are you taking my son?" My father, Jason Vega, asked looking at her. This was the only time she stopped and looked at some one seriously. She looked at my father, seeing the man he was, and the man he used to be. I could see in her eyes that she wanted to take him too, but because of his dead legs, she couldn't, he could still pilot a NEXT with the best of them, but he was no longer the warfighter on the ground that he used to be.

"I am taking them all to another world. They are all needed to fight a war that our chosen is doomed to fail if they don't." She said. actually giving a straight answer to one of us for once. "our adversary has brought weapons to that world similer to your own and our chosen and his allies do not have what it takes to fight them. They can handle those with the same tech that they themselves have, but your technology and weapons will be beyond them. We need you to level the playing field by taking on those enemies and keeping them away from Kenshi" She said to us all looking at each of us in turn as if she were judging our place in our personal heirarchy, seeing who stood where in skill, leadership and personality.

"Who exactly is Kenshi?" Canis asked her as he looked up at her as she floated around. "Kenshi is a member of the family I live with and a good boy. He is going to be the one you will be assisting." She said as she floated back down as she finished her silent study and judging of us"

"Just so we are clear, we are not taking orders from him...Or you..." I said to her, putting my foot down. " Just because you "hired" us doesn't mean we follow your orders. You have given us our objective and we will fulfill our mission to the best of our abilities...on our own terms." I said confident and defiant while she turned to look at me.

"Fine, just make sure that Kenshi comes out of it in one piece, and I will fulfill my end of the bargain." She said looking at me. since I made it clear that I was the leader of our little war band and that the others would follow my lead. I was the best Lynx in the world now, next to my father. I have already proven my skill and experience. that was the reason that even the older, Original Lynx would follow my lead and orders. They knew that I could take them to hell and back.

"Don't worry about your boy. There is nothing out there that can keep us from completing our mission. We will keep him alive, barring him doing something stupid and getting himself killed, that will be on his own head not ours." I told her while the others all stood up having finished their meals. "Now if you'll excuse us, we have work to do." I told her before I stood myself with Lilium still attached to my hip. We had a lot of work to do still and now we had the time to be more thorough about it. Neo and Julius both stayed where they were. They were going to continue eating. Mama Fiona wheeled my father down out of the mess hall and down the hallway heading for the garage and work bays. The red head woman nodded before she disappeared. The others walking with me and Lily finally let her death grip on me go.

"I don't like that crazy bitch," Canis just came right out and said what was on his mind. his Irish accent a little more noticable since he was annoyed. May snorted at his bluntness while Theresia kept a straight face as she kept on walking though I saw the corner of her lip turn up ever so slightly.

"I don't like her either but there is nothing we can do about it. I get the feeling we are going whether we want to or not and whether we are ready or not. So lets just get back to work on our systems and get our affairs in order before we disappear. Since we are going we might as well make certain that we are prepared and have everything ready to go. Make sure that Neo and Julius are fit to take command of ORCA while we are gone. I suggest taking some of our best NORMAL pilots and those who we can find that have enough AMS aptitude to pilot as many NEW-SUNSHINE frames as possible. and try to test some of the other Orca members for AMS to see if we can train any more formal Lynx. we get enough skilled NORMAL pilots in the SUNSHINEs and they can take care of themselves with their group tactics while learning to better pilot the damn things, and Neo and Julius can work on getting them trained up and training any random potential Lynx our AMS tests pick up." I told them as we walked, heading into the garage and to our NEXTs so we could continue working on the systems and frames. I looked over and saw my dad and Mama Fiona with Abe Marsh and Doc Joe. the engineers driving the large trucks with unknown large wrapped objects on them. Mama Fiona was directing them while dad was checking things on his PDA the other trucks had some of their workers driving them. they were bringing the trucks to the NEXT docks. I was going to have to see what they had brought with them they certainly had enough transport trucks and one AC truck with a tarped frame on it.

I might as well see what they brought. My father looked pleased with himself while the last of the trucks parked into their docks and the industrial NORMALs started unloading the boxes from the trucks. looked like a lot of ammo and spare parts. My father was grinning ear to ear seeing me approach and looking at the tarped frame.

"Dad, what is that?" I asked him seeing him still grinning. as he snapped his fingers and the NORMALS pulled the tarp back exposing the AC NEXT frame beneath it and my eyes widened in surprise which only made my fathers smile grow huge seeing my reaction. "Happy Birthday Darien."

I had completely forgotten that it was my birthday. My father on the other hand had not, and they had thrown a huge party that night after we had finished with our work for the day on all of our NEXTs. apparently my friends hadn't forgotten either, I had gotten a very old M1 Garand from Lily, she had use a decent amount of her money to find and procure one for me. May had bought a large supply of AXE body soap and shampoo that she had stuffed inside a large, expensive duffle bag filled with the stuff plus other toiletries. I had though it was a little heavy when I lifted it and when I opened it up and pulled the stuff out, she had lined the bottom with a lot of .45 ammo boxes and one longer box that when I opened it up contained a Beretta CX4 carbine. Theresia had bought a month supply of my favorite candy, Kit Kats, as well as plenty of dental hygiene supplies. Canis had given me a new black leather coat with plenty of hidden inner pockets of various survival supplies and in a few of the pockets were a few boxes of .44 rounds and under my right arm was a custom Smith and Wesson 44 Magnum revolver. Miss Haze had gotten me a few small wood and metal puzzles to amuse me by taking apart and putting back together as well as a few classic books, a full collection of Sherlock Holmes and, surprisingly, a old complete collection of Three Stooges. My father and Mama Fiona had gotten me some new scopes for my M4 and other attachments as well as parts to finish off my 1911. though the biggest present was what they had brought on the AC truck. A complete White Glint frame to customize how I wished. my father had his White Glint frame rebuilt and he still used it though mainly for defense since his 'retirement' he had Abe Marsh and Doc Joe and every engineer and mechanic he could get his hands on to make a copy of his iconic NEXT.

We had partied pretty hard that night judging by the footage from the security cameras. Canis, being the jackass that he is, spiked the supply of powerade I had been drinking knowing it was the only way he could get me drunk since I would never willingly drink, and I blacked out most of the night and woke up next morning next to Lily, which was expected. What was not expected was waking up with May in the same bed. granted, it wasn't the first time she decided to get in bed with me and Lily. But those occasions were rare and NEVER while any of us were drunk. Needless to say Canis was sleeping off a hangover and bruises from the ass beating we had given him the following morning.

A week passed rather faster than I thought and we had gotten a lot done in that time. We had procured a number of NEW-SUNSHINE frames and kitted them out for the NORMAL pilots that passed the tests to be able to pilot them, and we were able to recruit a few new LYNX from the ranks of ORCA, a few were rather promising too with high AMS compatibility scores. we just needed customize their frames and equipment and figure out how they liked to fight and work with that. all our stuff was packed In bags or cases. we had gotten a brief transmission from the crazy woman that she had room for everything we wanted to bring and more. Doc Joe and Abe Marsh had wasted no time during the week to do as much work as they could on my arm and eye. replacing a few more parts or upgrading others as well as giving me late birthday presents in the form of mods for my arm's weapons systems and eye's operating and targeting systems. they showed me everything they had done and described it in enough detail that they put me to sleep. though they did at least show me how all the mods worked and how they attached to my arm when needed.

We were all packed up and ready to go. all our stuff in the garage loaded on trucks. our NEXTs and a handful of my spares were coming with us. namely the White Glint frame which I still haven't worked on yet. the Eagle, the Deadly-Light and a Rosenthal Type-Lancel that I kept around as a toy to customize as I saw fit. Everyone was geared up in our CBR gear though we left our masks off for the moment. We were waiting for the crazy woman to show up since she was going to be our transport to whereever the hell we were going.

"Well you all looked fit for battle." we heard her familiar voice and our heads looked up and she was floating high above us. looking down at us as she saw us geared up. our NEXTs on their trucks guarded by a number of NORMALs and a few brand new NEW-SUNSHINEs. Two of the pilots were in two of my old frames which were not coming with us. the squad leader was piloting Brutus and his second in command was piloting BOB. a non-typical NEW-SUNSHINE, bright orange and with a mix of traditional and non traditional weapons. I decided to give the two frames up to those I felt were best for them.

"The sooner you get our transport here the sooner we can get this over with." I told her she only chuckled and floated to the large door. I shook my head and walked over to my father and step mother and gave them both big hugs, though my father cracked my back with his return hug.

"Be careful. Remember, Semper Vigilens, Vae Victus." He told me looking me in the eye. Patting me on the shoulder hard before Mama Fiona gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek. " take care, your father and I will be waiting for your return." she said looking at me and then smiled. " give 'em hell Dare." She said with small silent tears falling.

"I will Mama Fiona, dad. take care, don't let Neo or Julius get themselves killed, they'll listen to you." I said to him while he only smirked. " Oh don't worry. they know better than to ignore me." he said with a smile before I turned and walked away, never looking back. Dad taught me long ago to never look back or else I would have a harder time leaving. I pulled my mask on over my head and pulled up the hood, as did the others as we hopped in our trucks. each of us driving a different truck with NEXTs or supplies on it. everyone else in the garage either donned their CBR gear or left for the safety of the sealed off halls or rooms. before the sirens warning that the gates were going to be opening finished sounding off. As soon as everyone was clear the gates opened up and we all drove out. following the hologram woman on her green cushion. seeing nothing outside as we drove.

"HEY! Crazy Lady! where is our transport!" yelled Canis from his truck clearly irritated that nothing was there. "Its right in front of you if you open your eyes." she yelled back over the loud wind. "What the hell are you talking abou-." He didn't finish as, like a mirage, a massive, very familiar sight appeared before us as if a curtain had been lifted. It was massive. a very impressive sight and with a familar name stenciled on the sight, slightly modified it looked almost exactly as I remember it. 'SPIRIT OF MOTHERWILL 3.0'

"Well...This is going to be interesting." I heard Miss call over our comm headsets. as we started driving for the elevators under Motherwill that lead up into its belly. I couldn't agree more I thought to myself. This was going to be very interesting. I'm about to shake hands with a ghost.

Well finally Chapter 5 is complete and out. been busy working and fighting writers block on how I was going to work this out and where I'm going with this. one step closer to Geminar Ladies and Gentlemen. I hope you enjoy this little work of fiction that has been cooked up in my brain so far. I want to put the effort into finishing this unlike most works and make more after this one possibly when the time comes and inspiration hits. anyways, enjoy. bitches, gripes complaints? shoot me a message, just don't be an idiot about it.


	6. Chapter 6

Standard Disclaimer here. i do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. this is a work of fanfiction. the previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 6: The Voyage of an Answer.

We were pulled into the belly of Motherwill 3.0 by the large elevators beneath it. more trucks that carried more of our supplies waited below for their turn for pick up, the drivers wouldn't be coming with us, they would just be dropping off the supplies inside. The hanger was a impossibility, much larger than should have been possible. It was the size of an airfield at least. the walls lined with NORMAL and NEXT docks. Most of the spaces were filled with NORMALs and NEXTs though there were spaces open for our own NEXTs. Our reactions to the sight of this impossible hanger could be summed up by Canis.

"What the fuck?" Was all Canis said in confusion, all our expressions similar as we looked around driving the trucks through the impossibly large hanger to the docks for our NEXTs and put them all up in their docks before driving our trucks to spaces designated for them. ORCA members in their trucks filling the hanger one by one. NORMALs unloading the trucks of supplies, ammo spare parts and weapons before they all left through the elevators. The elevators returned and the floor sealed before the Kojima Particles were gone in the fastest Kojima purge I have ever seen. The system was leagues beyond even the best systems we had. The crazy woman grinned at our dumbfounded expressions.

"Like the improvements I made to Motherwill 3.0? Some of my best work yet if I do say so myself." She declared, obviously proud of herself as she floated around while we were unloading our bags and cases from the trucks that carried them, some of the cases shaking a bit from our pets that were kept inside. Specialized boxes that were designed to keep out Kojima, oxygen tanks attached give them air. We found what looked like long bed drivable carts for us to use, putting our personal bags on them. Lilium setting one of the cases on the cart we were going to be sharing. I pulled out my own little case and just as I set it down the door popped open and out of it shot a furry little grey blur.

" You furry, slinky, little bastard..." I growled in irritation as the little blur stopped. Ghost, my fat, pet ferret, sitting in front of my feet making clear that he wasn't going to stay cooped up in that box any longer than he wanted. The furball was a well known escape artist. No matter what cage I bought to put him in or lock or box, he always got out of it. He could usually be found most mornings sleeping on my head after escaping his cage when I went to sleep. It had gotten to the point I stopped closing and locking his cage and left it open so he could sleep in his little ferret hammock if he wanted or walk around the room, though usually he spent most of his time breaking out of my room and hiding in the kitchens stealing food.

Lilium smiled seeing him and Ghost, seeing that, shot over to her and crawled up her leg and body to curl up around the back of her neck after she changed out of her CBR gear. I did so as well looking over seeing Canis open the cage to his bull terrier, Charlie who trotted out and to one of the seats on the cart. Theresia opening her own box cage and out came her big bad rottweiller, Brutus. Appropriately named and the only time you ever heard Theresia 'baby talk', was to her dog. This was the only thing that Canis would never make fun of her for, 1. because he was a fellow dog person, and 2. she made it clear by expression that she would hurt him a lot worse than usual if he made fun of how she was with her dog. namely by siccing said dog on him the second he opened his mouth.

"Oh be nice to him. You know he doesn't like being locked up." Lily said to me as she scratched a purring Ghost under his chin, cooing at him as he was pleased to be out and comfortable. Miss Haze set her pet cases on the cart that she and Theresia were sharing and May set hers on the one that she shared with Canis. Everyone out of their CBR gear now and climbing on our carts and following the crazy lady.

"How exactly is this possible?" Miss Haze asked her as we followed her, looking around at the impossiblity of the hanger around us. The lady was leading us to a large set of doors that opened up into another impossiblity. It looked like a nature preserve from before the Economic War. dirt roads going different ways through across plains, over hills or into woods and forests. there was even a lake that we could see. It was enough that we stopped, slack jawed at the sight before us. Everything was clearly green and alive. something we haven't seen since the end of the Lynx War.

"The technology that I am usued to using is obviously far more advanced than what you have. However there are differences between our worlds and you have tech that we do not... Yet..." She said wiping a little drool off her chin since she must have been refering to our NEXTs. " Where I come from this is normal for certain royal ships. I just applied the same tech throughout Motherwill 3.0 so it serves as a home for you all effectively, after all I have to keep you all comfortable and happy to do your jobs properly." She told us as she led us down one of the roads, leading us towards what looked like a military base with various buildings and what looked like a large manor.

"You keep saying Motherwill 3.0, what happened to 2.0?" Asked Canis as we drove into the facility heading for the manor which I was assuming would be our home away from home. It certainly looked welcoming. It stretched out left and right and looked at least three or four stories, sub towers jutting out the side here and there and one right in the middle that was taller than the others that went up a good distance. the woman floating towards the front door while we followed and parked the carts. each of us grabbing one or two bags for now before following her inside.

" I used the basic outline and design of the original Spirit of Motherwill to create the perfect base that you are going to be calling your home for now on. What was left of the orginal formed the base of 3.0 and after I looked through the blueprints I completely redesigned the structure and internals, removing the flaws of the original so that it no longer has the weaknesses that made the original so ineffecient, reinforced the armor, revamped the electronics, enhanced it's FCS, improved the mobility and completely overhauled its power system. This baby is never going to run out of power and it will take army of your NEXTs to destroy it." She said, getting more and more excited as she talked about her project, by the end she sounded positively manic. She certainly looked crazy now before she composed her features.

" Thats all well and good, but what happened to 2.0?" Canis asked again as we headed towards the manor carrying our bags, that was when the dogs started barking and we turned around seeing what looked like GA SOLARWIND NORMALs, although human sized and industrial models unloading our other bags and cases. Charlie and Brutus both going nuts while their owners held tight on their leashes to keep them from attacking the machines.

"oh don't mind them. they are completely automated. there are plenty more like them and other models that will run this Arms Fort. After all its impossible for just the six of you to run this thing by your selves and I couldn't bring your army with you, therefore I did the next best thing and filled the crew list with various models of your NORMALs, all with advanced A.I. installed so that they will learn and work on the Arms Fort. I also took the liberty of doing the same too those NORMALs in the hanger. you are going to need cannon fodder sooner or later and they will help with defending Motherwill." She said as she lead us into the manor unconcerned and still not answering Canis' question. He and Theresia were still pulling their dogs along, pulling them inside the manor.

The main foyer was rather larger with a half circle staircase that went to the second floor with what looked like a center stairwell that led to the third and a last stairwell that led to the fourth that was to the side and faceing the opposite direction of the third. long halls went left and right at each level with another that stretched out infront of us. from the looks of things the manor was a solid base to the second floor but the third and forth only went left and right at the front. the sub-towers at the ends of the manor and the main tower jutted out from the back of the manor connected to the second and first.

"Go claim your personal rooms and meet me back here and I will give you the grand tour of the facility." The woman said as she floated over to side and stayed there. The others glanced at me before I gave a slight tilt of my head and they took that as the ok to separate. Canis took off upstairs heading down the left hall on the second floor while Theresia headed all the way to the fourth floor. May headed off for the third floor's right hall.

I chose to head down the center hall on the first floor. Miss Haze heading up to the second floor right hallway. Lilium moved back and forth on her feet as she looked up and down the halls trying to decide where to go while Ghost crawled down her and took off to follow me. I headed further down the hall and found a room on the left side of the hallway. opening the door and looking inside. it was, again, a lot bigger than it should have been. clearly two stories since I could see a stairwell against one wall. the "room" was completely furnished. I could see the living room which I currently stood it. with the dining room that connected off to the right and to the left of that was the kitchen. Ghost shot past my legs and like a slinky, ran upstairs. I sighed and followed him up to check upstairs. Which was a single large room the size of the lower level. a large bed to the far wall. Dressers and wardrobes lined the walls as did a couple chairs and a couch. a computer on a desk in one of the corners and a large tv against the wall opposite the bed. Ghost was already on the bed curled up on the main pillow. Shaking my head before I moved to set my bags on the bed.

Hearing a rustling down below so I headed back down and saw Lilium in the door. still shifting uncomfortably back and forth. She looked up at me as I came down. I could guess what she was doing here. Normally she always had her own place. Never staying with me in my own except to sleep most of the night and be gone by morning, a habit she had since our time at Collared when she didn't want any obvious signs of us being together, mainly to hide it from Wong Shao-Lung, who would report it to her family if caught. There were obvious reasons why she couldn't be seen with me if you knew our family history. Of course that didn't really matter anymore once she came with me to ORCA.

"Ready to move in?" I asked her seeing her with her bags. She nodded and moved over to the stairs to follow me up them, showing her the room that was going to be ours. She set her bags on the bed and looked around before following me back downstairs. I knew why she was nervous even with no real reason to be. Old habits were hard to break and she was so used to hiding our relationship that she kept thinking her family would find out about us despite the fact there was no way for them to know about us now.

We made our way out of the room to meet with the others in the foyer.. the woman saw Lilium and myself as the last to return before she nodded and headed back outside with Canis in close pursuit still bugging her about 2.0 and she was still dodging or not answering. we made our way to two of the carts that were cleared of baggage that the mini-NORMALS had been unloading. I drove one with Lilium riding shotgun and May in the back seat. Canis drove the other with Miss Haze and Theresia, we followed the woman as she floated off, leading us into the base facility so she could show us the various building and what they were for. She started off showing us the main building which we would be working out of for the most part complete with command center and stations for operators. Explaining that the connection was stronger than before and it threw a ton of new data that the operators never had before to work with. There were stations to control the weapons and defense systems as well as the NORMALs A.I. to commanded them what to do or tune them to act on preprogrammed plans of action. after that she showed us the barracks and mess hall in the event we had to bring others on the ship with us. Judging by what I saw it looked like she intended us to train some from that world to pilot the NORMALs or NEXTs if they showed aptitude for it. There were only a few more buildings on base. There a gym, an armory and a workshop filled with various stations to complete a variety of projects, and lastly, a state of the art medical facility with tech far beyond what we have back home.

"That is about all there is to it. You can get the specs for Motherwill in the library in your manor. It will take a few days for the ship transporting the Motherwill to get to the world we are going to, which is called Geminar by the way. I would appreciate that you not mention me to Kenshi at all, he should stay focus on staying alive and not worrying about how or why you are there which will distract him from focusing." She said as she led us all back to the manor. At the front door, Brutus was was sleeping infront of it, guarding what he percieved as their new home. Charlie was sniffing around the building taking everything in, though he was probably looking for someplace to take a leak.

"If that is all, will you leave us alone to get settled in. We need to get our rooms ready and learn everything we can about the Motherwill and work on our defense plans for it, at least until we get to our destination." I told her. though it was mainly to get her to leave so we could have time to ourselves. none of us felt comfortable with her around, she set all of us on edge.

"Oh very well, however I do expect a full "check up" tomorrow. I really need to examine each of you to make certain that you are all at your best..." she said with a slight giggle staring at me. drooling a little. letting out a really creepy laugh. We all stared at her, thoroughly creeped out before she faded away. I sighed and looked at the others and nodded. All of us heading into the manor and to our rooms though Canis was still muttering about finding out what happened to Motherwill 2.0. We had spent the rest of the day settling in. unpacking our bags and getting our rooms to how we wanted them.

Lily was setting up a decent sized tank on one of the dressers before going to the box that held her pet and she pulled him out. a fat, bearded dragon, Henry. who she cuddled and petted before putting him into his take and he immediately went under the heat lamp for a nap. I had to chuckle as she was not as squimish as you would think for a girl from a high class family. She had told me she had thrown one of her few temper tantrums in order to make them get her one. We were both putting our clothing into dressers, while trying to keep Ghost out of the drawers because he kept trying to get into them, generally just making a pest of himself as he usually did if he saw we were busy doing something.

I was currently wrestling with the living slinky as he kept trying to get into my sock drawer so he could steal a pair of his favorite socks. I don't know why he liked that particular pair so much, only that he would steal them any chance he got and try to hide them in his cage. It got to the point where Lily had to hold him until I could finish unpacking my clothing and close all the drawers. The furball waddled off in a huff and growling that he couldn't get his way. Lily laughing at Ghost as he couldn't get his way and had his little temper tantrum. we watched the ferret head downstairs, probably to raid the kitchen most likely.

After we had all finished, we had all decided to have dinner together. while all the rooms had their own kitchens, we felt like eating together in the main dining hall. Theresia and Miss Haze did most of the cooking while the rest of us helped. While we all could do a little cooking, our best were the two older Original, women. they made it clear though that they were not going to be the only cooks and were going to teach the rest of us how to cook so that they were not the only ones doing it.

"I was going through the library earlier, I found what the crazy bitch didn't want us to see" Canis told us at the dinner table. We had a beef and vegetable stew in front of us along with seasoned bread rolls and small mixed fruit bowls.

Canis pulled out his PDA checking on what he found. " 2.0 was blown up because it couldn't handle what she did to it. she had done a lot more to it than she did to 3.0 a different powersupply and weapons system. it overloaded and it pretty much blew up in her face... Multiple times before she finally cut back on what she was trying to do. I don't think she expected me to be smart enough to hack her records through the library." he said, looking quite pleased with himself. You wouldn't know it from looking at him and from his personality, but he was a tech geek. He passed his PDA around so we could see what was going on.

"Well that explains why she wouldn't answer you..." Said Theresia as she looked at the records and passed it back to him before she continued eating. Canis had gotten the complete record of her experiments on the Motherwill so we now had the full story on it. We just needed to learn everything we could about it in the short time we had before we arrived.

"I told you I don't like, nor trust, the crazy bitch. This just proves my point." Canis said as he put his PDA away.

"Agreed. but unfortunately she is the one in control as much as we all hate it. Lets just do this job so we can go home. The sooner the better. The faster we win this war, the sooner we go home." I said as I looked around the table seeing their nods.

"Our best bet is, upon arrival. taking charge of everything they have and organizing them to how a real war is fought. I say learn what we can about our destination from what the woman supplied us in the library. learn what they have and how they fight and work with it or change it. from what I read earlier in the library, they are basically children playing at war. they haven't had a war by our standards in years. If we didn't go, they would be slaughtered in a week against others like us. They would never stand a chance against a NEXT." Miss Haze said as she dipped a bread roll in her soup before eating it.

"Well it looks like we may have to train some of them in NEXTs even if we don't want to." May said as she munched on a chunk of beef, before swallowing. "considering that were are basically a small guerrilla force, I suggest hit and run tactics with our NEXTs on select targets and hunt down their NEXTs as we go." May said as she started strategizing with tactics we were used to using anyways.

" I think it will end up being more complicated than that." Lilium said softly as she fed a bit of beef to Ghost who was sitting on her lap. " 'No plan survives first contact with the enemy' after all" She said looking at them all. we were all soldiers at heart. though only a couple of us were trained as foot soldiers as well. namely myself, Canis and May. However I suspected at times that Theresia was a black commando and saboteur. no one got her reputation with out at least some truth to it. She never talked about it and no one had the balls to ask.

"Well in any event I think everyone is going to need at least basics in small squad fighting and tactics. So I guess we will have to train hard until we get there to at least get everyone to at least know the basics in the event we have to do any ground fighting out of our NEXTs. " I told them all and got a general agreement from them all. We were going to be very busy until we got to our destination. We should get started sometime tomorrow since it was too late now and we all needed our sleep. We finished our meal and cleaned our dishes and put them away before we all headed to bed. it was going to be a long couple days ahead. we had a lot to learn and train for. I was glad I had my friends with me. if anyone could pull this off, it was us. we may have been a ragtag group of Lynx of vastly different backgrounds and styles, but we had yet to lose. all of us, harden veterans and skilled Lynx. It was going to take a group of equally hard and dangerous Lynx to take us. I climbed into bed with Lilium who promptly cuddled up to my side nuzzling her head on my chest before she went to sleep. Ghost had climbing into his hammock in his cage to sleep. I held Lilium to me as I drifted off to sleep. I slept deeper and more relaxed with Lilium close by. Every day I was glad to have her. I was glad to have her here in this war with me. With her and the others, there was nothing that would stand in our way.

Well Chapter 6 is out sooner than I expected. it just came to me and I felt I should write it before the motivation or inspiration left me. in time I will upload the NEXT pictures on my deviantart account along with what Darien looks like. will possible do the others as well. just a heads up, but my drawing sucks so anything and anyone I design and create will have to use a game with creation capabilities to make them. Also. I am starting to plan out another story to write. am still debating whether I should write it while writing Geminar 4 Answer or if I should wait till after G4A is complete. I'll think on it. Bitches, Gripes Complaints? shoot me a message. Constructive criticism is apreciated. just don't be an idiot about it.


	7. Chapter 7

Standard Disclaimer here. I do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. This is a work of fanfiction. The previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 7: The Arrival of an Answer.

"Hey! Crazy Lady! You know, this is not what i had in mind for a standard procedure, 'Check Up'..." Canis complained as he was tied down to the examination table in the medical facility. It was the next day and we had all shown up at the facility for our check ups. I had to agree with him on this one as I too, was strapped to a table. Minus my arm and eye since the Crazy Lady had taken both and was examining both of them with her instruments. The others were in similar circumstances as everyone was tied to a table. She had gassed us so that she could get us strapped down, though she had to taser me since as soon as my body sensed gas my artificial lung activated and filtered it so it wouldn't affected. This was more for the Crazy Lady's safety than ours since she knew she couldn't study us without physically being there for once, and she knew damn well that, unrestrained, we would probably attack her and force her to send us back home. We didn't volunteer for this mission to begin with and she just up and decided we were going to do what she said and that was the end of it. She had already examined everyone else. Administering immunization shots as well as anti-viral shots to kill anything we had that we could transfer, or at the very least make it impossible to to spread diseases that we had that we were already immune to but could spread to others.

Watching Canis get a large gauge needle shot in his ass had been amusing though. Unfortunately we all got the same shot and we were all rather uncomfortable on the tables with asses still stinging. I hated those shots, not to mention the fact that if the woman came from a place more advanced than us, Why would she give us a shot the old fashioned way?  
Then I realized she did it only because she could and she like watching us squirm.

The woman was still examining my arm and eye, prodding here and there and hooked them up to in improptu device to try and get them to work for her. She looked a bit frustrated as neither one responded to her and she couldn't figure it out. They had power to them so they should work with her commands but they gave back no data. For once, I was glad for Abe Marsh and Doc Joe. Their design was surprisingly beyond her. I had a hunch I knew why. Because my eye and arm were based off of NEXT technology and not normal robotics and electricity. all the materials used to create them were based of the same materials they used to create a NEXT. The super-alloy, the wiring, the power supply, everything. Which meant that the only ones capable of controlling them were Lynx. Because of the psychic control needed to operate them as well as the connections inside my body. Neither would ever be more than a paper weight to her.

She had another arm and eye picked out that looked normal but my body rejected her 'superior' design, not to mention my own rejection. As much as I loathed Abe Marsh and Doc Joe, I owed them my life. They had gone through the trouble of making the replacement eye, arm, and brain graft along with a few artificial internal organs. Abe was, and always had been, a NEXT engineer. Doc Joe, while no less brilliant, had originally been a normal docter and surgeon, however his 'experiments' caused for his license to practice to be pulled. That mattered little after the fall of Rayleonard and his migration to Line Ark where they didn't care so long as he could work. He learned a great deal in a short amount of time from the various engineers and mechanics making him almost as good as Abe, but his true calling had always been doctoring and so that is what he did most of the time when he wasn't assisting Abe in maintaining my father's White Glint. The two of them together had made the genius idea of merging NEXT tech and conventional robotics and artificial limb work to create one of a kind replacements strictly for Lynx. Of course, both of them being crazy, they had a lot of fun designing and letting their inner 'geek' take over. Turning what was supposed to be normal replacement parts into a state of the art experimental weapon system and platform before installing them on me.

I watched the woman grow more and more frustrated before she got up and walked off checking her other instruments which were monitoring us. Checking each of our stats again. Noting various scar tissue on skin or over old broken bones. I glanced at my arm and eye on the table. Feeling the phantom pain that came with limb loss and to my surprise, the fingers on my right hand twitched. I blinked rapidly and looked to the others and they looked at it as well before looking at me. I stared harder again, feeling that phantom pain, willing movement and it twitched again. I smiled wickedly. Apparently my control over it didn't end with it being severed from my body. There were days when I really loved being a Lynx. Using my psychic control the hand raised up and the eyeball turned to target the Crazy Lady as we had come to call her since she never gave us her name.

I could see through my other eye and targeted her and the firearm in my arm exposed itself. A invisible targeting laser followed the point of my eye targeting her. She turned, hearing the noise from the table and yelped and dove for cover as the gun fired, spraying buckshot where she had been standing. My arm scuttled off the table like Thing from the Addams family, going after her to which she kicked it away and activated the fire control system from her floating see through computer and the fire control cannons shot their sticky fire retardant residue at my arm pinning it to the floor. I growled in frustration. I almost had her. She glared at me and stood up dusting herself off trying to appear composed but I could see that I had shaken her.

"That was uncalled for. " She said glaring at me. Rearranging her hair back to normal.

"What's uncalled for is you taking us from our home to fight a war not our own." I snapped back at her while we had 'willingly' came along, it was only because she would have forced us other wise.

"Well if you had accepted my offer the first time we wouldn't be here!" She shot back before sighing and working on her computer again.

" 'Accepted'? we would still be right here regardless, you crazy bitch!" Canis snapped, struggling at his bonds. She ignored him as she usually did before she snarled in frustration and her computer disappeared. She glared at the ceiling briefly, or rather it looked like she was glaring at a point beyond it, before she walked off muttering something under her breath that sounded like 'This is all your fault.'

"You will arrive tomorrow morning. I suggest getting prepared and rested. I doubt you will just drop into the action. Oh and by the way I bolted a few goodies on your NEXTs to prevent the kojima contamination from ever spreading beyond them. I don't want the same thing to happen to Geminar that happened to your earth." She told us in a frustrated huff. No doubt irritated that she couldn't get the data she wanted so badly, that and the fact that we were still rebelling. She came across as a woman used to getting her way and being obeyed, and not getting it got her angry. she walked through a door that wasn't there a moment ago and slammed it shut before it disappeared and as soon as it did, the restraints opened up.

"I am going to kill the crazy bitch first chance I get..." Canis growled, wincing as he got up rubbing his sore ass cheek. the girls were doing the same thing as they got up.

"Get in line, me first" surprisingly, it was Theresia who spoke. She spoke so rarely and distantly that it was a surprise that she was making her thoughts clear. I moved with a slight limp rubbing my sore left ass cheek as I made my way to the table that held our personal weapons. Strapping the holster and my 1911 back on with a little difficultly using only one hand and attaching my pair of tomahawks to my belt and grabbed my knife before heading to start cutting away at the blue gunk that pinned my arm. Lily strapped on her BFF sidearm and the combat knife I had given her for a birthday years ago was strapped across her lower back. She walked over to my eye and picked it up and brought it to me while I chipped away at the gunk pinning my arm. she carefully helped reattach it into my skull before I finished freeing my arm and reattached it back into its socket and reconnected the necessary wires. while the attachments were necesassary I now knew, they lightened the psychic burden of using my arm, granted it was very little considering my AMS, but even a little bit helped and it did make the reaction time a lot faster.

Canis had a pair of Algebra handguns that looked like Lares under his arms and combat knives strapped upside down on his upper arms. making sure the straps and snaps were snug before he went to check the damage done by the buckshot. Theresia was a little more unnerving with her selection of personal weapons. Her GA sidearm revolver, which was surprising by its self since it was a well known fact she hated GA, was loaded with Kojima laced bullets

and she had a spring loaded knife from her home country of Russia. she was french and russian, though it was hard to tell because she spoke perfect english with a strange dialect and accent which made it hard to tell where she was from unless she told you. Though when she was pissed, I had the privilage of seeing her go off in a combination of french and russian swear words mixed with a little english.

May also favored GA sidearms though hers was a more modern incarnation of the 1911. she had a old Ka-Bar passed down to her from generations of her families long ties to the U.S. Marine Corp, before the National Dismantlement War. Miss Haze favored an large Aldra handgun with a long barrel and underside rail which was perfect for a small grenade launcher that she could attach when she wanted. As for a up close weapon she had an Arisawa knife that looked like a black bladed tanto, perfected with new stronger metals and much lighter and sharper.

We left the medical facility and hoped in the carts that were a transport around our still unbelievable home. the roofs were up and the screens closed since it was surprisingly raining, Ghost was napping on the passenger seat where Lily left him when we went into the facility. The furball made a nuisance of himself until we brought him along. We all climbed into our carts while Lily picked up the still sleeping ferret and set him on her shoulders before we took off, making our way along the paths towards the hanger.

"How could you miss Dare? she was right there, you had her, and you missed..." Canis was, as usual, bitching. I rolled my eyes and checked my arm. I had reloaded it with another buckshot on the way out before it sunk back into my arm.

"had she not moved, I would have had her. Had my arm still been attached, she would never had made it no matter where she dodged." I told him as we drove on, heading into the hanger. Driving over to our NEXTs, passing all the spares and NORMALs that the crazy lady had somehow got a hold of.

"Leave him alone Canis, He tried. At least he got closer than the rest of us." May said from behind me in her seat. Lily was riding shotgun with Ghost draped over the back of her neck napping.

"I still think he should have had her." Canis, still complaining. He was going to continue before Theresia leaned over his seat behind him wrapping her arms around him seductively, one hand going lower.

"Now now Canis dear, he did his best considering the circumstances. So leave him alone...Pretty please?" She said huskily in his ear while his eys were wide open in shock at how she was talking. They widened more as her hand traveled low. His eyes almost popped out of his head, this time in pain, as she grabbed him tightly by the balls. "Now be a darling and shut up for five minutes...Pretty please?" she said with an evil smile on her face. Giving a twist for good measure before Canis yelped and shut his mouth before she slunk back in her chair her face looking calm and collected again as if nothing happened. Miss Haze, who saw the whole thing from shotgun, was laughing her ass off while we parked to check on our NEXTs. It wasn't going to take long really, just a check that all armaments were full or fully charged and that all running and operation systems were green across the board. We had to do a minor adjustment on Ciliegio. A glitch in the system was throwing her targeting off slightly. Granted she was probably going to be doing very little piloting since we needed an operator, but in case of emergencies, it was best to make sure her NEXT was working perfectly just in case.

We headed back after about a hour, that hour was spent mostly trying to catch my psycho ferret who felt that now was the perfect time to play 'Ring around the NEXT'. Using Karyon as a playground while we chased his fat, furry ass until he was tired enough to let Lily pick him up. He knew full well she would protect him from my wrath. I could have sworn the furball stuck his tongue out at me from Lilium's shoulders before he went back to sleep.

Charlie and Brutus were both sleeping in the main hall out of the rain. Charlie passed out on his back in one of the couches and Brutus, typically, was sleeping right infront of the door. The big rott growled at us before Theresia told him to be quiet and he followed his mistress up to her room. Charlie woke up but refused to move until Canis gave him a belly rub before he rolled off the couch. Miss Haze had taken one of the carts back to the facility to familiarize herself with the new operator system. We didn't have the time to run everyone through a quick squad training. There was nothing we could get done it the little time we had, so I went to my room to grab some targets and a couple ammo cans. Putting them on one of the dolley carts that were around the manor as well as the M1 Garand that Lily got me for my birthday and my M4. Lily, who had followed me and seeing what I was doing, let out an excited squeek before dashing up to our bed room. Ghost hanging onto her shirt for dear life. She came back down with rain gear and her favorite rifle, an old M14 EMR I had given her during her first trip to the range with me.

She hadn't shot guns before, her family wouldn't let her for years since she was their 'princess' and she shouldn't be seen with something so crude as a gun, and yet most of her male relatives were riflemen at heart with their own guns. so the first time I took her to the range to spite her family, she was understandably nervous as a first time shooter. That all changed when I let her shoot my guns those years ago. Initially they had frightened her but she grew to love them as I taught her how to shoot. Despite the kick on the M14 she loved it a lot and, looking at me with her big puppy dog eyes as she held the rifle in her hands after she spent all her ammo, I couldn't resist. I gave her the gun and she practiced whenever she got a chance, especially with me. I am not ashamed to admit it, but she ended up turning into a better shot than me.

I grabbed my own rain gear and we headed out. Ghost, seeing the guns, stayed in the room because he didn't like the noise. We passed May on the way out and seeing us with our guns, she booked it for her room to grab her own since it was a good idea to let off some steam and pass time. She had come back with her gear and weapon of choice, a GA manufactured Bulldog 7.62mm. Both girls had a taste for the higher caliber rifle rounds. We took one of the carts and headed off from the manor about a mile over some hills and picked a clear spot. I headed off to set up the targets while the girls were busy loading magazines and pulling out the stripper clips for my Garand. I had set out the targets at various ranges and made my way back to the girls who were finished and had the guns and ammo laid out.

We took turns shooting for an hour or two that afternoon. Naturally, Lilium out shot both of us, but I out shot May with my garand and no scope while she used her modern ACOG. We had talked a little while we shot. Generally teasing each other for the most part and picking on each other's shots. We had, more or less, grown up together. I had grown up mostly with May since my father did a lot of work for GA and they often put us together while dad worked for GA. After the Lynx War, when GA helped put BFF back on their feet, we met Lily who hated my guts on sight for the first few years we had known each other, when she heard my name she attacked me because my father killed her cousins. eventually, obviously. We grew closer as she accepted me more and more. mainly because no matter how bad she treated me, I treated her nicely...most of the time...we occasionally got into a scuffle that May would have to break us out of. May got along with everyone and she and Lily ended up being best friends as they grew up when my father and Mama Fiona took me away to Line Ark for the next few years until I was old enough to head out on my own as a Lynx.

We all met up again at Collared when I left Line Ark. May and Lily were still together though Ostdarva would constantly pick on Lily as she rose the ranks determined to make Rank 1. A place that Ostdarva, the cocky little prick, held arrogantly, and mercilessly bullied and picked on her when May wasn't around. After a couple bullying incidents from Ostdarva picking on Lily when I was around after I came back to Collared, I had just had enough of his attitude and punched him in the face which led to a massive fight in the hall way with black eyes and bruises all around. His little butt buddy CUBE got involved and they ganged up on me. This was around the time I started getting friendly with Canis and he saw all this and jumped into the brawl on my side. It lasted a few minutes before some of the older Lynx, namely Roadie, Wong, Theresia and Stiletto broke us up. I'll never forget the looks on Ostdarva and CUBE's faces when Theresia kicked them both in the balls to stop them fighting. Which instantly made me and Canis stop because Stiletto looked like she would do the same thing to us if we kept it up. They dragged us all away from each other and kept an eye on us for the next couple days. May, being May, fussed over my injuries cleaning up cuts and stitching a couple when Lilium had come by. Unusually shy and quiet. She apologized to me for how she had treated me over the years and then thanked me for sticking up for her before she ran off. After that we had been close ever since and Ostdarva stopped picking on her eventually because she always hid behind me when he was around and the cocky bastard knew he couldn't beat me in a straight up fight.

We cleaned up and headed back. Lily had a big silly grin on her face as she hugged her rifle to her chest. Rather proud of the fact she had outshot May and I. May grumbling a little, Though it was half-hearted, that she was shown up by a little princess to which Lily grinned all the more for it. When we got back we notice that Miss Haze's cart was back and could smell dinner cooking. Smelled like roasted chicken and potatoes to which I got a grin on my face since it was my favorite. We went to our separate rooms to put our stuff away and headed down to dinner in the main dining room. Dinner was a quiet affair. Canis was sitting as far away from Theresia as possible. The older Lynx making it clear that she would sic Brutus on him if he acted up.

After dinner we all headed to bed to get some rest for the night. I was woken halfway through the night when May climbed into bed with me and Lily. I didn't get to sleep much the rest of the night and at one point Theresia yelled at us to knock off the banging. I was grateful for her intervention because it meant I could sleep the rest of the night while May and Lily cuddled up to me.

The following morning we were getting geared up, though I was a little worn out. I had chosen to wear a black BDU with the left sleeve on the blouse cut off exposing my arm with a fingerless glove on the left hand. The right was completely covered by its long sleeve and full glove. I had my M4 sling over my chest with my side arm on my thigh and my tomahawks hung on my belt. My knife hung upside down on my upper right chest, above the M4 mags of which I had six, and on my belt I had strapped four mags for the1911. Lily had donned a BDU in the BFF company colors. She strapped her gear on her, copying my style, though her rifle was slung over her shoulder. Canis had gone for desert BDU pants and t-shirt with his combat vest over it, an OMER assault rifle in his hands. It looked similar to an old AK, just lighter parts and also a smaller caliber. May wore traditional camo BDUs and had her rifle slung over her chest like I did. She, Canis and I were all properly trained as foot soldiers in addition to our next skills. The others on the other hand would need a little coaching if it came down to it. We carried the extra gear just in case we had to leave the NEXTs for any reason. Theresia held a shotgun infront of her fully loaded and a PDW slung across the small of her back and she wore a solid black BDU similar to mine. If there was any doubt about her being a black commando before, those doubts were gone now. She certainly looked the part. Miss Haze held a M4 style rifle with her gear, wearing a khaki BDU pant and brown shirt. Though she only had them just in case. She was going to be in the control room as our operator. We headed out of the manor and went for the carts. Miss Haze talking one cart and heading for the facility while the rest of us made way for the NEXT hanger.

We headed inside and for our NEXT's as we were climbing in with our gear and battle packs we felt a sudden shudder then jolt and heard a click on our mics.

"Motherwill has been released. This will be the last time I contact you" We heard the Crazy Lady's voice on our headsets. "You will arrive on position close to your target. Don't worry, Motherwill 3.0 can handle the free fall and landing." The woman's voice informed and reassured us as Canis suddenly looked up at the words of release and free fall.

"I swear to god Crazy Lady If you get us killed, I'll haunt your sorry ass..." Canis growled, reaching into his shirt to pull out his dog tags and cross. Crossing himself and saying a little pray before kissing his cross and stuffing it back down his shirt. He had the habit of doing that before every mission. I fired up Insanity watching all lights go green one by one. listening to everyone else start up their NEXTs. Everything rocking and shaking around us as we felt Motherwill shake and rumble on atmosphere entry.

"All lights green. Systems nominal." Lilium said, all business now that she was in Ambient. It was a reminder for Canis to shut up for a minute and follow procedure.

"Oh alright. I'm greenlit across the board. No problems. Ready to deploy." Canis said as he ran through his checks. his report going to Miss Haze.

"All systems nominal, wait, slight variation...Corrected. Karyon is good to go." Theresia said as she ran through her system checks.

"Merrygate reporting. I am green, and very, very mean!" May said and we could hear the smile in her voice.

"Insanity reporting. Systems green. Weapons, Cocked. Locked, Ready to Rock. HOOYAH!" I reported and then yelled. Feeling the free fall getting faster and faster. Miss Haze monitoring us from the center. Checking our systems for anything we missed.

"Engaging boosters. Slowing descent. One minute to touch down." Miss Haze reported. Her hands a blur over the consoles and boards. Calling commands to the computer's A.I. systems. Commanding a number of NORMALs to activate and head out when we did.

"This is it. It is all up to you. Make sure that boy survives.. Good luck" And the Crazy Lady's voice cut out finally. It was all us now.

"Miss Haze we are prepping for launch. Unlock bay doors to prep for launch." I asked Miss Haze as I moved to the one set of doors. Ambient and Merrygate behind me. Savage Beast and Karyon at the other set of doors. NORMALs lining up behind us all and to our sides. We heard the click as the doors unlocked but we couldn't launch until touch down.

"Thirty seconds till touch down. booster output at maximum. Slowing descent." Miss Haze kept us informed. Our NEXTs and the NORMALs bracing for impact. My mind completely focused now. Ready for whatever waited on the other side of that door. "Counting down to impact. 20...19...18..." Miss Haze started counting down. Clocks appearing on our screens, watching the countdown and bracing. I was ready. We were all ready. whether or not there was a battle waiting for us beyond that door didn't matter. Only a strong show of force and unity to show we mean business.

"15...14...13...12...11...10...9..." My hands on the controls. My psychic control over Insanity was absolute. It was time to do what we were hired to do. Protect some young brat. Was I worried? no... I was the best in the world. It was time to show them why.

Chapter 7 is complete. wooh! this was a doozy to write. finally on Geminar. and it is not going to be how the Lynx will think it will be. I will try to mix in the lightheartedness of War on Geminar now that we have arrive. it won't be quite as serious as it has been. at least I will try to write it that way. no promises, my hands write what flows through them. which is how the entire story has been written thus far. I get a starting point for a chapter and I kinda know where I want to end, after that. its all my hands. I will say this for the next chapter. it isn't what the Lynx will expect to find upon deploying from Motherwill. constructive criticism is appreciated. bitches, gripes, complaints? shoot me a message. just down be an idiot about it.


	8. Chapter 8

Standard Disclaimer here. I do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. This is a work of fanfiction. The previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 8: The Landing of an Answer.

"5...4...3...2...1... Touch Down!" We heard Miss Haze over comms just as we felt the sudden jolt and shaking from impact. Motherwill may have slowed down to the point it could withstand the landing, but the landing still rocked it, making it shudder violently. our NEXTs and the NORMALs all braced for the worst to pass and the doors to the launch points opened up.

"GO GO GO!" I yelled over comms, overboosting out and down the cannon like tunnel. They were designed almost like rail guns and so I shot out a lot faster than I thought I would, Ambient right behind me and Merrygate behind her. In the other launcher I could see Savage Beast and Karyon shooting out followed by their team of A.I. controlled NORMALs. I knew full well that my own team was right behind us, and more were activating and getting ready to launch. Boosting out of the tunnels we hit the ground running though Ambient had shot straight up as she exited the tunnel and landed on one of the now extending wings. A couple of Silent Avalanche class 048AC-S NORMALs following her, with 044AC sniper NORMALS to back them up and finished with a number of GA03-SOLARWINDs armed with bazooka's and missiles. Those NORMALs would be the constant defense force for Motherwill. Ambient used her superior optics and radar to scout for us while Miss Haze was busy giving orders to more NORMALs. More 051AO80-AK joined the defense line and 051AO70-AKs followed Beast and Karyon. A number of SOLARWINDs and GOPPERT-G3s followed myself and Merrygate.

"No sign of enemy contacts. Nothing on radar." Ambient reported in. She was right at the top of Motherwill. The 'wings' of Motherwill opened up and the missile launchers opened and primed. The various machine guns and cannons scanning the area. The long range cannons spun around, tracking for targets. The rest of us had boosted out and were scanning the area. Had it not been for the focus I had preparing for a fight. I would have admired the scenery. green trees and rolling hills, blue sky and white clouds. As we boosted forward. Motherwill was slowly following following us.

"Motherwill to Insanity, you might want to simmer down now. No threats in the area, though I think we just ruined someone's day." Miss Haze said over the comms. We all came to a halt outside of the forest we landed in, looking on and seeing something in the distance. Miss Haze sent the long range optics to us on one of the screens and what we saw baffled me.

"What the hell?" Canis cut in on the comms as he caught up to me and Karyon who was just about as mobile as I was. Merrygate bringing up the rear with the NORMALs. In front of us in a large valley, it looked like a war had broken out in a large facility on a island in the middle of the valley. Chunks of land looked like they had been cut from the valley walls. there were workers everywhere looking up at us, or rather, at Motherwill behind us as it came into view. It certainly was a lot more intimidating looking than us. The sight of us had stopped everyone dead in their tracks from what they were doing. Repairs were underway from the looks of things. As Motherwills long range cameras kept scanning we noted a very large white patch on the ground near a forest on the island. The cameras zoomed in and focused more on the patch and finally we could make out a small army of women and girls. All dress in what looked like varying styles of wedding dresses. All of them looking up at us flabbergasted, at the end of the aisle at what appeared to be an alter was a tall, pink haired woman holding a heavy chain leash, connected to the collar of a young asian boy dressed in a tuxedo who looked rather miserable. A tall red head was next to him in her own dress looking up at us. from the looks of things, she was bright red in the face. From embarrasment or anger, hard to tell, probably both.

"I think we just ruined someone's day..." Theresia in Karyon said as she saw what the rest of us saw on screen from Motherwill. We noted all the woman and the one guy and, as much as I didn't want to believe it, I only had one conclusion.

" I think we just interupted their wedding." I said, though from the look on the boy's face, he looked relieved, though the pink head beside him kept a tight grip on his leash. We noticed a number of odd humanoid machines rising up and coming towards us, bearing what appeared like an assortment of medieval weapons and odd rifles. All of them making a beeline straight towards us and they looked rather hostile because all weapons were aimed directly at us.

"Prep for retaliation." Was my simple order. The TRAVERS and SIRIUS arming themselves, Insanity spreading its legs and bracing for recoil. everyone else arming their weapons and getting ready while I keyed the megaphone feature. "Approaching contacts, this is your first warning, stop where you are and cease all agressive action." The mechs stopped but they still pointed rifles in our direction, the others with the melee weapons spread out looking like they were ready to charge. Everyone on the ground watching us. Seeing this I rolled my eyes, not at all afraid. If those rifles were the most dangerous weapons they had, then they never stood a chance against us. If this was who we were supposed to help, then they definately were screwed. They might be lucky enough to take down a NORMAL or two with their numbers, but they wouldn't be able to even scratch a NEXT. With the way they moved, I doubted they could even keep up with Merrygate, and she was the slowest NEXT among us.

"Approaching contacts. This is your last warning. Cease all aggressive action or you will be met with lethal force." They couldn't even touch us at the range they stopped at, they must think we couldn't touch them either. How wrong they were. They were easily in the range of our weapons, not to mention that Ambient and her sniper NORMALs were all locked on. They were looking at each other, obviously communicating and I rolled my eyes again. "We are not your enemy. We have come to offer our assistance. We are looking for a young man named Kenshi." At the sound of the name, the boy in the tux looked up in surprise. The movement catching my attention, He must be our target Weighing options and risks, I opened my overboost.

"Dare..." I heard May say in warning. She could see, and guess, what I was planning. Though I could hear her overboost charging up. On the other side I could see Karyon and Beast charging theirs and I knew full well that Ambient was doing the same.

"This is a really bad idea..." Lilium said over comms as we finished charging and boosted ahead, blowing past the mechs and sending them all flying head over heels in all directions from the shock wave of our speed. Heading straight for the wedding site.

"I don't really care at this point. I wasn't hired to be nice and political." I said as we reached the site and killed boosters. All of us landing and tearing up the ground. The mechs looked like they were going to chase us, and probably would have if not for the sniper NORMALs, firing off warning shots, making it a very clear message, they move, they die. I could hear Miss Haze groaning over comms in exasperation as my impatience took over. I toned down the volume on the loudspeaker before speaking again, back weapons disengaging. "Kenshi, I presume? don't worry we are not enemies of yours. if we were, you'd be dead. I don't have the patience for niceties at the moment. I would like to speak with you right now..." I said, looking around at the field. The women all looking up at us with big eyes, and many of them in fear. A few looked angry, and one, a woman with purple hair, was practically drooling looking at our NEXTs.

I sighed seeing them all and feeling Ambient set her hand on Insanity's shoulder. "Fine...I'll try to play nice with others..." I said. I could feel, if not see, her disapproving face. "I can see that you are busy at the moment so we will wait for now until you are finished." I said before we all stepped back. The boy's face had, initially at my statements looked up in hope, oddly enough, but at my second sentence his face fell in dismay.

"I don't think you did the boy any favors Lilium..." Canis said, sounding rather amused. It certainly sounded like he was grinning at least, from his tone. Karyon, who was standing to his right. Jumped straight up and slapped Savage Beast in the back of its head with her missile launcher. The impact from her landing making the ground shake and sent the girls falling over each other. This only made Canis laugh all the harder at the sight. The priest who was overseeing the wedding looked like he was about to book it, and probably would have had not a buxom blond poked him in the back to keep him there. The priest sighed and continued with the sermon though many of the girls kept staring at us. Many still fearful, others were growing more curious over time. We were stuck waiting for about two or three hours. one girl after another being married to the poor bastard at the altar. We didn't understand what was going on or why. We would probably find out later. The girls all looked much happier as each of them walked away from the altar and the boy looked more and more depressed, like a man walking to his own execution.

" You know that fantasy that all men have about have about having multiple women to himself?" Canis asked me over comms. We were all either making small talk or playing games over the screens for the last couple hours, currently we were playing texas hold'em and Theresia was whooping all our asses.

"Yes..." I said as we laided out our sets of cards on screen to which Theresia grinned and showed her flush causing me to drop my head, headbutting the console infront of me as I watched more of my funds transfer to her.

"I don't think I want that anymore..." He said as he smacked his leg as he two watched his funds transfer over to her. the virtual cards traveling back to the deck. I could see his point. With the last wedding of the boy and a blushing green haired, short girl, He looked positively drained of all hope and life. We were looking at each other through our screens as we played and Theresia grinned like the cat that ate the canary, having got over a hundred thousand credits. The virtual card deck disappear as did the screens for the game. We all stretched out finally out of our relaxed positions. Lilium had, at some point, been turned completely upside down in her NEXT, playing the game upside down with her legs kicking back and forth in the air. Her upper back was where her butt usually sat in the seat. May had her legs kicked out over her consoles as she leaned back in her own chair. The newly married girls were all heading back into what I assumed was going to be the reception hall. The pink head still leading the dejected looking boy along by his leash. The mechs had finally left us alone seeing that we weren't doing anything, also after the occasional warning shot from the snipers when they tried to approach, made it clear that they should leave us alone since we were not doing anything to interfere. I sighed and reached into left thigh pocket and pulled out my bandana and sunglasses, tying the bandana around my skull before putting on my glasses, mostly hiding my scars and my eye.

"I think it is safe enough for us to leave the NEXTs. Keep your weapons with you, just in case." I said as I put on a headset before making Insanity kneel down before putting it in idle. I opened up the core and dropping the emergency rope ladder before climbing out. The others doing the same. Kenshi and the pink head and some of the other girls had stopped in front of the hall, watching us as we approached. I looked at them all noting each of them, a short blond girl who looked like an early teen standing close to Kenshi it what looked like a royal dress. The red head from earlier was just behind her. The purple haired girl was staring at us, though her gaze kept returning to our NEXTs practically drooling. I made a mental reminder to watch our NEXTs around her. She gave off a similar vibe as the crazy woman. Two tall young women stood together, one was blond with glasses and the other was dark skinned with...pointed ears? I had to blink a couple times before ignoring her and taking the others in.

"What the hell? An elf?" 'God damn it Canis'...I thought to myself as he spoke, once again putting his foot in his mouth. As usual, what was in his head just came out. Theresia growled and smacked him in the back of his head, to which he winced and rubbed the spot. she had hit him pretty hard as a reminder for him to keep quiet.

"I apologize for the rudeness of my companion. He was raised by wolves with no sense of tact or manners..." I said dryly. Lilium coming to stand to my right. Theresia was keeping an eye on Canis while May was casually looking around. She was really scanning for targets but was not making it obvious. "My name is Darien Vega, this is Lilium Wolcott. May Greenfield." I said tilting my head to our green headed companion who smiled and gave a little friendly wave." Mr. Foot In His Mouth over there is Canis, and his current babysitter is Mrs. Theresia." I said. Theresia glaring at Canis to make sure he kept quiet before she nodded her head in greeting.

"We have one more of our number currently busy in base so she could not be here her self." I said as we walked towards them. I held out my right hand for Kenshi to shake. He blinked a moment before reaching out to shake my hand. I saw the slightest movement of his eyes as he shook my hand. He was sharp, the way the glove and hand was designed to make it appear as if a normal hand was beneath it, but he noticed something was wrong. I made a mental note to keep my eye on him.

"Nice to meet you. I am Kenshi Masaki. Um... Exactly why are you here?" He greeted me politely before asking his question. "what exactly did you mean by assistance earlier?" He asked looking at us. I took another look around noting that a war had already been fought here, but it couldn't have been the one we were sent here for.

"We were sent here to provide assistance, there is a war coming which you cannot win without our help. Frankly, you need our help to survive. Whoever it is, they have weapons you can't handle, but we can. therefore we are here to fight in that war..." I told him as we all walked together into the hall. I told him everything I could that I understood myself. It took an hour to explain everything, who we were, what we were and why we were there. In that time his new wives had introduced themselves to us. They had explained they had just got finished fighting a war about two months ago, hence the destruction and repairs we saw. They had also explained that it took them that same amount of time to capture Kenshi and keep him captive until the massive wedding we just witnessed. They explained how and why it happened. which, kinda made sense, but at the same time, I disapproved of it because, to them, Kenshi was basically a top class cut of meat they all wanted a bite of regardless of his feelings in the matter. I now pitied the poor bastard. judging by the small army of girls, he was not going to get much sleep for a month or so.

Some of the other girls kept staring at us in our 'strange' clothing. The girl known as Lashara was watching us with a slight evil smile on her face and I knew why after some things had been explained about other worlders all being powerful Mecha-Masters. Kenshi had explained his relationships to each of the girls and when he explained Lashara's before she could shut him up I now understood. She was hoping to 'own' us, I was going to nip this in the bud here and now before she got any ideas.

"Just so we are clear, we are not here to serve you. ANY of you. We will not pilot your mechanoids, they are far and beyond inferior to our NEXTs anyways. Besides, we will not be here for long, just long enough to finish this war and go home." I said looking at each of them, but especially Lashara and Maria, who both looked like they had the same thing in mind about us. My glare matched theirs as they were trying to intimidate me, seeing that I was the clear leader. They seem to not understand I didn't give a damn about their royalty and titles. That and they seemed to be ignoring the fact that I specifically said we were not going to be here forever. "We are here to take over the war preparations. not to follow your orders. We have more time on the battlefield than any of you. We have just got done fighting a war far bloodier and more far reaching than you can ever imagine. I doubt there is anyone among you who can take us either in your mechanoids, or in hand to hand combat, so don't even think about trying to intimidate us to do your bidding." I finished, leveling a cold pointed stair at Lashara and Maria, they couldn't see my eyes because of my shades, but they could see in the set of my face and body language that I was not backing down.

"Maybe you would like to prove it then?" Lashara said looking cocky, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked at me.

"Excuse me?" I asked looking at her raising an eyebrow, not believing she was that stupid.

" Excellent idea Lashara. It sounds to me like a dog who is barking yet won't bite." Maria said as she looked at me with a similar smile on her face.

"That is a really bad idea. I wouldn't recommend it." Theresia said as she leaned back in her chair. looking at the two royal brats. she had the same view on royalty that I did.

"Why? Afraid you'll lose?" Lashara taunted us looking at each of us with her smile, like she had us.

"No, because Dare will wipe the floor with anyone and everyone you put up against him..." Canis put in, surprisingly serious for once, he certainly looked insulted on my behalf.

"If you think you are so tough then fight Kenshi. If you lose you belong to us." Maria and Lashara said together. Like they thought they backed us into a corner and trapped us.

"Fine... but you are going to need a lot more people than Kenshi to take on Dare." May chimed in, just as insulted as Canis was. "You might want to bring an army. It will take one to bring Dare down." She finished crossing her arms. I sighed as my friends were backing me up, but also to prove the fact that we were not going to be their property.

"Bring as many people as you want. It won't make a difference, and when it is over, you drop this subject forever. Period." I said as I stood up. Lashara and Maria both grinned and looked at Kenshi's closest wives, pretty much showing who all was going to be in that fight.

"Good, tomorrow morning then in the arena. Lets see you put your money where your mouth is." Lashara said chuckling and then cackling. Kenshi had an odd look on his face, looking at us. I could see that he was a lot smarter than the two royal brats. The girls that they were putting into the fight didn't like all that happy with them either but they however looked confident that together they could handle just me. Kenshi on the other hand didn't look that confident. at least he was the smart one. It was like he knew that the princess and empress had bitten off more than they could chew, and were about to humiliate themselves with all their boasting. We walked out while the two girls made their plans, and set up betting pools.

"Dare..." Lilium started off but I held up my hand and she quieted down, sighing and shaking her head.

"If you were going to say take it easy on them, the answer is no." I said as we walked to our NEXTs, I knew full well what she was going to say. She, being a 'princess' and understanding how they think and act. we had all climbed up into our NEXTs before taking off heading for Motherwill. "I will not take it easy on them just to make them feel better about losing. I will not make them feel that they have a chance against a NEXT, that will not help anyone if I gave them such a delusion... I am going to stomp them into the ground so hard that they will never ever forget it." I said as we headed back into Motherwill. The NORMALs all stationed on the wings looking out, constantly scanning for targets. We explained everything to Miss Haze as we headed back to the manor, getting our dinner and heading to bed to rest. Lilium cuddling up to me under the blankets. I didn't like people who were stuck up. Those brats reminded me strongly of Ostdarva and his arrogance. I was going to show them, and make certain that it was very clear, that their only hope of survival was me and my team. They wanted proof that I was tough? They were going to get it.

Well Chapter 8 is out much sooner than expected. Hope you enjoy it. Also. can anyone give me the common insults and or translations for the following, Irish, british, russian, french and japanese. Also an few examples of normal speech for british and irish. I want to make the Lynx a little more close to their national backgrounds, though I will obviously have an easier time with brits since all I really have to do is listen to my buddies from the UK when I play with them online. any help would be appreciated. constructive criticism is appreciated. Bitches, gripes, complaints? shoot me a message. Just don't be an idiot about it.


	9. Chapter 9

Standard Disclaimer here. I do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. This is a work of fanfiction. The previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 9: The Proving of an Answer.

I had woken up that morning with something long, furry and warm stuck to my face. Grumbling as I shoved Ghost off my head, the furball growled at me before he waddled over to curled up on Lily's chest, and went straight back to sleep. Still grumbling as I got up stretching out my good arm and testing my biotech arm making sure it was still functioning properly before I grabbed a towel out of one of the cabinets and headed towards the bathroom for a nice long warm shower. I felt very little worry for the coming morning events. It was about five in the morning, my usual wake up time from my internal clock which meant Lily wouldn't get up for another hour. She thought it was nuts how May and I got up so early. Between both mine and May's families, it was normal. Both coming from heavy military backgrounds. Her family being mostly marines and navy and my family almost entirely navy through all generations. My father being one of the last SEALs trained in those last years before he left the service and became a Raven with mom. A few years before the National Dismantlement War. They had fought as Ravens in their custom NORMALs for the U.S. before GA took over. Thankfully they had both survived, and worked as Ravens still for a while to pay the bills. Before the Originals started hunting all the Ravens they could.

I finished up my shower and headed out wrapped in a towel and started getting dressed for the day, seeing that things weren't exactly critical at the moment I dressed a little more 'casual'. Black BDU pants and single long sleeve t-shirt without the heavy armor and vest, though I still kept my sidearm, knife and tomahawks. Pulling on the black leather glove to cover my right hand and a fingerless glove for my left. It was as I was pulling on my boots that Lilium finally work up, sitting up and yawning, Ghost rolling down still dead asleep as he fell into her lap. She blinked and rubbed her eyes clearing the sleep gunk from them and looked around spotting me getting ready before she yawned again. She picked up and put Ghost back on her pillow before she stripped naked out of her pajamas exposing her petite form without a care. She grabbed the towel that I had used earlier before she headed into the bathroom for a shower. I headed downstairs to our kitchen to start up a little simple breakfast. Frying up bacon and sausage to go with our bowls of cereal and fruit. Pouring her a glass of chocolate milk and a glass of OJ for me. She came down the stairs after about half an hour fully dressed just as I finished cooking. Ghost sleeping on her shoulders and Henry, her bearded dragon, in her hands. She set the fat lizard on the table feeding him small bits of fruit and berries. Ghost had woken up at the smell of food and was now looking over her shoulder for little pieces of sausage from her plate.

"Dare... I'm not telling you to go easy on them... Just... Please don't scar them? They are all still just children after all..." She said to me as she ate her cereal, passing little cuts of sausage and bacon to Ghost occasional while also feeding her lizard his favorite berries.

I sighed as I ate, not too much since I didn't want an upset stomach in the few minutes it would take to stomp them into the ground. "I can't make any promises... I will try to make this as quick as possible. If they still get scarred from that, it can't be helped." I told her as I ate. Henry seeing that her fruit bowl was empty had waddled his way over to mine. Sighing I took what I was going to eat and pushed the small bowl to the fat lizard who proceeded to chow down on what was left of my fruit and berries. He especially loved bananas. " Lily, bet what items you can on this fight. I have a feeling it will make more of an impact on that little brat if she loses everything she bets on this to us. That and it will give us plenty of pocket money to throw around when needed since our credits will mean nothing to them." I told her as I watched Henry waddle away from the empty fruit bowl and back to Lily's before looking up at her almost accusingly like she would give him more.

"Ok Dare. How long do you think this will take? "She asked as she picked up her empty plate and bowls and put them in the sink for us to wash later before she went back to the table to pick up Henry. I picked up my own dishes to do the same.

"Less than five minutes... Probably three if they can't get lucky on a dodge. They have nowhere near the speed needed to get out of the way." I pointed out and waited at the door of our room while she put Henry back in his tank before coming back down. Ghost leapt from her shoulders to mine as we walked together out of our room and down the hall. The furball curling around the back of my neck, I scratched the top of his head as we headed to the main hall to meet the others. I have to give Canis this, he had the same idea I did. He had a bundle of guns he would wager as well as a few rings, Lily had some jewelry she was willing to put up. Theresia was putting up her old marriage ring and a necklace. They all knew it was impossible for me to lose so they didn't care about what they put up. Miss Haze was already at the command center.

We had headed out in our carts making our way to the hanger. Canis was quiet for once, though he was grinning ear to ear over the fortune they were all about to make. I would have told Canis to put the guns away since I didn't want them getting ahold of any technology of ours but knew he wouldn't hand them over unless by an act of god I lost.

"Remember Darien, Take it easy. We don't want to accidently kill the one we are supposed to protect." Miss Haze said over comms as we made our way into the hanger, heading for our NEXTs. Giving them a quick once over as we started them up.

"Main system, activating normal mode." A robotic male voice called out from nowhere as I started up Insanity which surprised me.

" What the hell?" I said out loud as Insanity started up and started running through some checks without me.

"Apparently at some point the other day, that woman had installed experimental A.I. units into our NEXTs. I noticed them when I was running a check on them the day before. They were still calibrating and working into the system. They shouldn't be a problem, just something to assist keeping an eye on things for our NEXTs, nothing to worry about."Miss Haze said over comms as the other A.I. woke up and talked to their pilots.

"Insanity is green across the board. Ready to deploy?" Asked Insanity. Still a little unnerved, I shook my head and settled in completely and stretched out my psychic control over Insanity. Feeling the other presence as it suddenly connected with my mind as I connected with Insanity. "Calibration complete. reaction time improved by 10% connection improved by 25 percent." Said the A.I., now in my head. Now very ill at ease as I headed for the launch doors with the others behind me.

"Open doors Miss Haze." I said and a moment later, they slid open and we boosted out. More NORMALs were spread around the Motherwill during the night following Miss Haze's programming, on the decks, on the ground and in the air, the defense force of Motherwill was complete.

We boosted over to island, one of us on each side of Karyon to give it a little extra lift since it wasn't much of a flyer. Insanity wasn't either for that matter but it could still fly better than Karyon could, and I had replaced some of the boosters and tweeked some of the tuning so it could at least fly better than before. We landed and boosted over to the arena, the others flying up high over the huge wall while I boosted through the entrance. Honestly, the arena looked like shit. destroyed pillars everywhere. the mechanoids were spread out around the outer walls and I assumed it was Kenshi in the white one in the center. Behind me the cameras picked up four of the mechs closing ranks and incidently blocking the exit. Red, blue, green and yellow, must be the four I had begun to think of as the 'Rainbow Quartet.' Two similar looking yellow ones and a bronze bull looking one were to my right with a green and brown one armed with what looked like a crossbow. To my left were a pink fox like one and a really big and mean looking red armed with dual axes. A purple one with what looked like a large rifle, and another which looked like a humanoid moth with a cape and a sword/rifle. They had brought an army like we suggested they do, not that it would do them any good. I already played out how I was going to take them out before the could do much. I could see my friends making their wagers and then climbing back into their NEXTs looking almost bored. Their NEXTs all lined up with cores open so they could watch. Many other of the mechanoids were lined up, up there as well, watching as what was a huge crowd of predominately girls cheer like crazy for Kenshi and his close wives. Though a section looked like it was entirely Kenshi's wives. As I understood it, only those girls who participated in the battle of the Holy Land as they called it had been allowed into the massive polygamal marriage to Kenshi.

The two royal brats were together, yet separate. I could see that they did not like each other and yet they worked well together. Lashara stood up and to what looked like cross between a tuba and an old record player, and spoke into it.

"There is still time to reconsider. You can back not now if you want and save yourself the humilation of losing. Just acknowledge the fact you belong to us and serve us loyally." She said as she looked down at me. I felt my brow twitch at her superior look.

"Yes... It is indeed time to reconsider..." I said, Insanity looking up at her, while she smiled thinking I was going to submit. " How about you reconsider calling this off before I completely wreck your so-called, best fighters..." I said low and cold. I could see my friends groaning as my temper took over. I could see in my cameras that some of the mechs were bristling in insult. Good, I wanted them angry. Angry was good, angry meant they would act rashly, angry meant easier pickings. Lashara bristled as I still was not backing down.

"Fine. We wish you youe best of luck... You will need it." She said before she sat down in a huff. Trumpets going off in sequence as a count down began. I activated my back weapons and got ready. Kenshi, in front of me was holding his sword at the ready. It looked like he was going to go for a straight charge. As soon as the final trumpet sounded, I did a quick boost turn to the right and fired the TRAVERS. My NEXT moved far faster than they expected, the round impacting the ground about a hundred meters or so infront of them but the resounding explosive wave sent the four of them on the right against the wall to which they collapsed against it, already out of the fight as the shock wave knocked their pilots out. Side boosting to my right after the shot and boost turned again, dodging Kenshi's downward slash as I was no longer in the spot I had started. The Rainbow Quartet tried to scatter seeing their companions taken out in a single glancing shot. I fired the SIRIUS between the blue and green ones which stunned them both from running while firing the TRAVERS at the ground again which sent all of them flying. The two stunned ones slammed against the wall and slid down but the red and the yellow both shot left and right, carried by the shock wave, I quick boosted to the red on the left and cut her legs out from under her at the waist with the MOONLIGHT and blasted the Yellow in the upper back with the SIRIUS which put her down for the count. Quick boosting back and then left and boost turned right, dodging Big Red as I decided to call her and lit her up with a full clip from the MOTORCOBRA which crippled all her limps and overboosted past her. Again, dodging Kenshi as he tried to cut me down once more. Slashing again with the MOONLIGHT as I closed with the pink one, cutting through the pink fox's sword and punched it in the face with the same arm, holding it in place by gripping its head as I dumped a clip of MOTORCOBRA into her and crippled it before what felt like pebbles were impacting Insanity. The purple and the moth were both firing like crazy, though my Primal Armor didn't let anything through but pebbles. I boosted towards them, once again dodging Kenshi as he kept trying to cut me down but I was simply to fast for him. The two launched themselves into the air in an attempt to either flee or gain ground. A TRAVERS round at the ground again sent them off course, stunning them both long enough for a shot for each of them from the Sirius before I turned to Kenshi as he lunged one last time and this time I didn't budge. The bodies falling and hitting the ground as he got to me slashing at me and I slashed in return. my MOONLIGHT cutting through his sword and cut his legs out from under him and as he hit the ground I stomped hard on his mechanoid's head crushing it. The fight, as predicted, took less than five minutes. As Insanity looked up I could see the crowd was completely stunned into silence. I had just taken out their best warriors in less time than it probably took them to go to the bathroom. I looked up at the stunned faces of Lashara and Maria. I could see Canis with a camcorder taping the whole thing. I flew straight up as my back weapons disengaged and pointed at the two royal brats with Insanity's left index finger before keying the loudspeaker.

"You brought this on yourselves... Next time pick your battles wisely. Next time you want to challange me you better do it yourselves instead of having others fight your battles. Next time it it will be you, if you cross me again." I said coldly and looked down. Kenshi and the others who could still move were crawling from their mechanoids were moving to help some of the others out of theirs. All of them looked battered and cut up. Apparently some of the damage that mechanoids took were taken on by their pilots. Looking up again seeing Canis had stopped recording and he and the others climbed out to collect their winnings. Everyone else had bet on Kenshi and the others. Only my friends had bet on me, though surprisingly a large share still remained. I wondered whose it was briefly while my friends climbed back into their NEXTs.

"Warning. Enemy NEXT detected. In the forest on the other side of the valley." I heard Miss Haze's calm, but urgent voice as she called out what she detected with her instruments. We all spun immediately in that direction, scanning the trees as our longest reaching weapons armed. a purplish NEXT suddenly popped up upon realizing it had been spotted and was moving to escape.

"OPEN FIRE!" I yelled as we let loose with missiles, lasers, and plasma cannons. The NEXT performing a series of expert chain boosts avoiding the incoming barrage and spun around before overboosting to get away. It looked like a BFF 047, and oddly enough, it looked disturbingly familiar, with its armaments that we could see before it took off setting off a red flag in my memories though I couldn't quite remember from where just yet.

"GOD, DAMN IT!" Canis swore as his missile launchers deactivated upon seeing the NEXT take off. I was about to give pursuit, my Overboost charging up until I heard Miss' Haze's voice.

"Don't do it. It's what she wants." Miss Haze warned me and I could have sworn I noted a distinct note of panic in her voice. I could hear a loud clicking and tapping which told me her fingers were going crazy over the consoles.

"Why? This could be a chance to find out where they are based if not knock one of their NEXTs out of the game early!" I yelled back, though I had consented and shut down my boost. hovering over to my friends and landing and then the thought hit me for a second. How did she know the pilot was female?

"Did you not regonize that NEXT or its emblem?" Miss Haze asked. She was sending the short recording we had of it to our screens.

"It kinda looked familiar, but what the hell are you talking abo-" I didn't finish as the emblem popped up and my blood ran cold. Hundreds of bad childhood memories coming to the surface, mixing with adult rage. Miss Haze's face popped up on screen as did everyone elses as we were all looking at each other.

"Dare... It's okay..." I could hear Lily's voice trying to sooth me, seeing my face in a mess of rage, hate, emotional pain, and painful, terrible loss. she knew my family history and what that NEXT meant to me.

"Kasumi... Was that her?" I could hear Theresia talking to Miss Haze. She was the only one besides my father who refered to her by her real name.

"Yeah...that was her..." I said instead of Miss Haze, my voice filled with a lot of very dark emotions. Miss Haze looked hurt for me. She was looking hard at me, watching the kaleidoscope of emotions washing over my face, all at the same time. The four of us knew that emblem, one that May and Canis wouldn't know, a whitish purple goblet surrounded by two purple rose buds and a blood red full bloom rose. It could belong to only one NEXT and Lynx.

"Return to base. I'll arrange for for Kenshi and the others to join us to discuss strategy... Just... Return to base..." Miss Haze said, at a loss for words, watching me closely while the others started moving slowly as they were keeping an eye on me. Miss Haze was watching my hand inching towards the overboost control. "RANK 1, DARIEN VEGA! Return to base! that's an order!" I heard Miss Haze bark her order in her usual firm and strong voice, knowing she had to get through to me before I did something rash. Karyon moved directly in front of me and gave Insanity a little shove with her left arm.

"Come on Dare... Now is not the time. Later, okay? You will get your chance soon enough... Besides I can't get back without you..." Mrs. Theresia said as she kept nudging me until I finally turned around after all her coaxing. I had grabbed one of Karyon's legs as did the others and we all boosted across the valley and back to Motherwill. Karyon didn't actually need our help, however we did make things a lot easier, and it was an exuse for me to not go after that NEXT.

We entered Motherwill and I moved Insanity to it's dock. The weapons being removed for rearming. I climbed out and headed for the carts. Theresia walking close beside me as did Lily and May. Ghost hadn't moved much from his spot on my shoulders throughout all that had happened but had immediately jumped to Lily when she was close enough.

"I'll drive..." Theresia said firmly as she got in the cart. May took shotgun and I sat in the back with Lily who took my hand and held it tightly in her own. Canis drove the other one alone in the lead as we headed back for the manner. My eyes down, staring at my knees. the flood of emotions still running through me as did a lot of my childhood memories. As we reached home we got out, Lily still holding my hand tightly as she led me along taking me back to our room and sat me down on one of the couches. Moving to the kitchen to make some tea and poking her head out occasionally to make sure I didn't move. She came out later and set a cup beside me on the table and she sat next to me just holding my hand quietly. Knowing that anything said wouldn't help. She was wise beyond her years, knowing that nothing said would make me feel any better with that ghost from the past pushed right back into my face so many years later after it had been laid to rest. Even Ghost was rather somber, for a ferret, he curled up in my lap after leaving Lily's shoulders and stared up into my eyes as I stared down. I could hear a commotion down the hall. Miss Haze and Theresia explaining things to Canis and May. Explaining who that was and what she meant to me. They knew I didn't like talking about it so they took it upon themselves to explain things so that neither of them stepped on that very dangerous landmine.

I must have sat there on that couch for hours, very slowly calming down. Helped along by Lily's presence and the tea she made as well as the unconditional affection of Ghost who eventually took a nap when I started petting him. When I finally stood, putting Ghost on my shoulders. Lily stood with me looking up into my face, while still pained, was much better than earlier. I looked at her, seeing her concern in her own face as she reached up cupping my face in her small gentle hands. Very slowly I smiled seeing her love for me and reached up gently taking her wrists in my hands and pulled them down slowly, her hands falling into my own.

"I'm okay now... Really... I promise..." I said softly. My emotions finally coming to a close at seeing her face now that I had mostly calmed down from my earlier emotional roller coaster ride. She nodded and leaned up kissing me gently before I walked out of the room with her. Her right hand in my left, giving a gentle squeeze now and then, knowing that I needed it. Everyone, including Kenshi and his closest wives and friends were in the large library. Before entering, I pulled on my bandana and shades. Hiding what i didn't want them to see and composing my face back to normal. Taking a few breathes before walking in with Lily. Taking my place at the table with her to my right, May to my left. Canis was next to May and Miss Haze and Theresia, respectively were on the other side of Lilium. Looking at Kenshi across from me. He was relatively unharmed, but a lot of the other girls were either in slings or on crutches, and all of them looked at me with a good dose of fear now. Kenshi, oddly, didn't look afraid, but almost as if he expected it. Lashara looked asolutely miserable with her friends' loss. Though probably the biggest blow to her pride and ego was the fortune she lost to my friends.

"Alright... Lets get this meeting underway..." I said as I interlaced my fingers, setting hands and arms on the table. "We will deal only with the tech that we are here to fight. Nothing more, nothing less. That being said. We will do our best to protect Kenshi from ALL threats. Our objectives are to protect him and deal with the tech that you can not. It is that simple." I said looking at them all. Showing a strong presence. Not giving a hint of weakness. These people needed a strong leader. I was going to give them that.

"Our mechanoids are going to need a few months to repair. After that fight I think it is safe to say that we will let you handle others like you. The purple head, Wahanly, said as she looked at us. She looked scared of me, and yet she was still almost drooling because she wanted to get her hands on our NEXTs. I rolled my eyes behind my glasses while running through options in my head. I knew damn well that the crazy lady gave us all those extra NEXTs and parts for Kenshi and his friends, but I was still hesitant on training them to use them, and I had absolutely no intention of letting them keep them after this war was over.

"Understood. We will have to work around that for the time being. I want command of your forces, all of them. You haven't fought an enemy anything like us before, and I can almost guarentee the other guys who are pulling the strings will no doubt train their Mecha-Masters to follow their tactics, not to mention that I have no doubt they will issue them at least NORMAL grade weapons given the chance. Therefore we must do the same, we will have to train alot of your soldiers to pilot our NORMALs however only a certaian number of you, namely those in this room, will have access to NEXTs, and only rarely, unless it is absolutely necesarry. I don't want you in NEXTs if not needed. Besides, I'm not sure how many, if any, of you are actually capable of piloting them. You might be stuck using NORMALs as well. This is of course, a low priority and last resort measure for us. We will do our best to deal with our kind so you don't have to though there will be at least one of us with Kenshi at all times to defend him." I finished and leaned back. crossing my arms and looking at them all. We were going to have to run them through an AMS test to see their compatibility. if any of them scored high enough, I was going to have to eat my words and put them at least semi-permanently in a NEXT.

"Who exactly is it that we are fighting? We haven't seen nor heard anything, other than your word, and that new one we saw today. You are just saying alot without much to back it up." The red head, Chiaia, said as she looked at us. With arms uncrossing, I turned my gaze to her and she flinched before composing herself.

"We were sent here to fight the enemy, whoever they are, whenever they show up. I believe we just saw a scout earlier. They are watching you, and probably have been for a while now. Now that they know, that we know, that they are out there. They may accelerate their plans, whatever they may be. Consider yourselves lucky that that NEXT didn't act until now, and be double thankful she didn't decide to fight. If you thought what I was capable of was bad, imagine what she could have, and would have, done without the restrictions that I was fighting under. I fought to prove a point without killing you all. She would have killed you all without hesitation and you would never have laid a finger on her." I said looking at her. Shifting forward and drumming my fingers on the table.

"But why do they want to fight us? We haven't done nothing to them." Kenshi asked curiously, the boy was innocent and naive. He didn't understand the world.

" They don't exactly need a reason. They could want to kill you because they want the land, maybe it's idealogies or religion, maybe it's personal, or it could be they just like fighting and killing. Who knows, the reason doesn't matter, what does matter is that they will use any opportunity given to try and kill you. You have two choices at that point. Either you lie down and let them kill and destroy you and all you love, or you fight back with everything you have to protect everyone and everything you love and care for. " Canis was the one who spoke up, surprising everyone. His words were the wisdom of a man willing to fight for, and protect, what he cared for. I often forgot he was smarter and wiser than any of us gave him credit for.

"Canis is right. It is as simple as that. Either you join us and help us push back the enemy whenever they attack, fight them off to protect yourselves and your home, or you can just lie there and wait as they get to killing you eventually, and rest assured, by that point we won't come to your aid. We will be fighting on other fronts, and that is not hypothetical, that is fact. If we have to, we will complete our objectives by any means necessary. Even if it means imprisoning Kenshi here in Motherwill for his protection while we do our job and kill the enemy until there is nothing left. those are our only objectives. Nothing else matters to our mission. Believe me when I say, that I am in the strong habit of only strictly dealing with my objectives. It would be in your best interest to assist in our objectives and follow our orders if you want a hope of surviving the coming battles. Do that, and I and will make sure that you are placed in positions of relative safety or high probablity of survival. If not, expect to be ignored or used as cannon fodder." I told them as I stood up, coming to a decision.

"Meet us here in the morning, or, move into the barracks we have. I guarantee that they are safer than being out there when the war begins. We will begin tests tomorrow to see which of you, if any, are capable of piloting a NEXT. Dismissed." I said and started walking out. Lily getting up quickly to follow me. We had missed lunch because of my mood earlier so I was hungry, heading back to our room to make up simple and quick sandwiches for us. I happily munched on my ham, turkey and cheese sandwich. Feeling better as my stomach was filling up. Lilium was sitting across from me at the table, Ghost munching on some slices of ham I had given him on the table.

"Feeling better?" Lilium asked me as we ate, watching me. While I had recovered a lot from earlier, she could still see I was brooding a little.

"I'll feel alot better later after I take care of some unfinished business..." I told her, finishing my sandwich, and watching her. She took such small bites with her little mouth. It was kinda cute the way she ate. That and she didn't wolf it down like I did, what with her being raised with "proper" manners, grace and dignity. Something I teased her over quite a few times.

"I'm glad. I haven't seen you look like that in a very long time." She said softly, only after the occasional nightmare had this happened in the past, something she didn't like seeing. She didn't like seeing me in such pain knowing what it meant to me. She wasn't going to lecture me about revenge. After all, she had wanted to kill me and my father years ago, she knew exactly what I was feeling. The only difference was that while she had let go of her vengeance, I hadn't. Had my father killed someone else closer to her, she would probably never have let go and we wouldn't be sitting here, right now, together. She would be going through what I was right now. I reached into my shirt and pulled out my dog tags, looking at the familiar women's necklace and ring attached to them. Rubbing them gently between my fingers before putting them away.

A knock at the door before it opened and in walked Miss Haze and Mrs. Theresia. Seeing me and Lily at the table and seeing me, more or less, back to normal. I saw them sigh in relief as they took seats at the table, we were all basically one big family. Both older Originals acted like my mothers. I had grown up knowing them and alot of the other Lynx, both Originals and second generation. there were so few Original's left. My father having killed many of them, as did Joshua O'Brien and others, though I think my father had the highest kill count. I couldn't remember anymore nor did I care to try.

"How are you feeling?" Miss Haze asked looking at me. Glancing briefly at Lilium, seeing her nod before she looked back at me.

"Better than earlier, thanks. Just a lot of old bad memories were brought up." I told her looking up seeing her looking hard at me. Theresia, as usual, was quiet. She just watched me, both of them had talked me out of doing some of the worst things I could have done in some situations years back. I owed both of them my life and sanity, what remained of it anyway. I may not have called either one of them mom, but they both knew that was how I felt about them, they could feel it whenever I called them by name.

"That's good, you worried us there for a second. We thought you were going to go after her anyways." Miss Haze said looking at me. Ghost waddled over to her and crawled into her lap for a nap. He was friendly with everyone who was close to me. Canison the other hand being kinda iffy since they constantly picked with each other, though Canis had, typically, started it.

"For a half second, I almost did." I admitted looking up at her. Taking off my glasses exposing my one good eye and my biotech eye. I only felt comfortable exposed in front of my close family and friends.

"Which is exactly the reason why I stepped infront of you. I could feel it." Theresia said looking at me. They knew me all too well. They had, afterall, watched me grow up. Things between my father and Mrs. Theresia were still a little frosty, but that was expected. She knew that the sins of the father were not the sins of the son. And while she had forgiven my father, that did not mean she was his friend, though she had accepted his request to look after me with Miss Haze when I went to Collared.

"Thanks for that... Really... I mean that." I said looking at the older woman. She looked tired. They both did. They had the same eyes I knew that I did. The tired, old eyes of a war fighter. The eyes that spoke of a long time on the battle field, making one feel as old as war itself.

"Well we just wanted to check up on you. Make sure you are alright. Your father would kill us if anything happened to his baby boy." Theresia said, suprisingly teasing me, it happened so rarely that it caught me off guard.

"Whatever you say _mom_..." I said sarcastically though they knew I full well meant it as well. They both got up and left, both giving my shoulders a squeeze before they walked out. I was grateful for them. Really, I was. I was grateful for all of them. They were all my family. Nothing was more powerful than the family you chose for yourself. I was going to make certain we all walked away from this alive. I would never be able to live with myself if I didn't. Sighing as I stood up. Lilium standing with me. Ghost had waddled off to take a nap in his hammock. We left the room to meet with the others. Lily holding my hand again. I was thinking about that impossibility from earlier. knowing that as impossible as it was, it had happened, it had to be her. The question now was how. We walked on as I was lost in thought. Knowing that this war had just gotten very personal in a matter of minutes. Knowing that at some point I was going to have to fight a ghost. It was time to lay that demon to rest.

Chapter 9...damn... Have fun figuring out who the ghost is. though I'm sure fellow AC fans will figure it out pretty quick. I will also say that things are not as they appear. You can also probably guess why that NEXT and Lynx are important to Dare. been planning this for a while now. I hope you all enjoyed the read. and yes I do realize that the fight was almost rediculously curb-stompish, but it was meant to be. we have to accept the fact that NEXTs are above and beyond superior to Mechanoids. I'm trying to make it so that Dare does not come off as just another cold mercenary. there are reasons behind how he is. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Bitches, gripes complaints? shoot me a message. just don't be an idiot about it.


	10. Chapter 10

Standard Disclaimer here. I do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. This is a work of fanfiction. The previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 10: The Pain of an Answer.

"HYAAAA!" was Chiaia's war cry as she charged Canis, and like just like the last couple times, she ended up face first in the grass with the flat end of her sword used to smack her in the ass before Canis tossed it on the ground next to her. It was a few weeks after the ghost incident and the girls were all fully healed between their healing ahou, or whatever the hell it was called, and our medical facilities. Kenshi and his wives were all on a set of bleachers we had rigged up together, while my friends and I sat on the other side enjoying the show. We were currently putting Kenshi's wives through a rigorous training regime before we let them lay a hand on the NEXTs or NORMALs, IF we let them touch them, not to mention making sure they could fight on the ground. I put them up against the others instead of me for the time being. They were all understandably scared of me after the arena battle a few weeks back. Even more so after a couple of Kenshi's closest wives issued a rematch, this time in hand to hand combat. I promptly put Chiaia, Morga and Aura into the dirt.

They had initially tried to get Kenshi to fight as well though he kept refusing. Smart boy, he was smart enough not to pick a fight he couldn't win. Don't get me wrong, the boy was good, very good, good enough to even give Canis a run for his money. But he knew it was a very bad idea on a couple of counts. He knew my arm was not normal, and he could see from the way that I moved that I had been training and fighting a lot longer than he had. I had my father and his old friends to thank for that they had put me through a training regime so hard I wanted to die, and they had done that ever since I could walk, and I meant that quite literally. This was all the reason we needed for me to sit out and let the others handle things. Canis was currently bare handed as he sparred with Chiaia, and in typical Canis fashion, he was constantly picking on her the entire fight. Embarrassing her every time he put her down.

Four of us were professional soldiers both in and out of a NEXT, though Miss Haze and Lilium were no slouches either. Both trained in martial arts as a sport and for self defense, though I worked with Lilium here and there on the dirtier aspects of fighting hand to hand, as well as breaking her of her sportsman's bad habit of backing off and letting up. Teaching her to keep going until her opponent was crippled or dead. Such a habit would get her killed in a real life or death fight.

We had Canis currently running a couple rounds with some of the girls. Chiaia was the last of Kenshi's close wives to fight him. After this fight it would be May's turn. Canis kept playing with her because she couldn't touch him and she kept getting more and more frustrated everytime he embarrassed her. Canis wasn't exactly taking this seriously, though I knew why, she couldn't touch him even on a bad day so he was pissing her off as a lesson. Had she been good enough to actually put him on guard it would be a different story. He would give her a lot more respect and fight more seriously. She was a decent fighter from what I could see but she was not a warfighter. I noticed something odd with these people and this culture. some things they took serious and yet a minute later they were like children with how they forgive and forget. I learned some of Chiaia's back story during the war and what she had done initially would have been a death sentence back where we came from. Her loyalty being proven later not mattering, we would never have taken the risk back home.

She charged him again with her wood sword swinging in an admitedly fine display of swordsmanship that was, unfortunately, turning sloppy with her anger and embarrassment. Lilium sat to my left on a blanket while May was to my right on her own. I was currently crouched down, my blanket rolled up behind me. Ghost was playing with Theresia as she had him chasing a toy on a string as she sat in a chair. Henry was basking on a rock in the sunlight next to May's painted turtle, Mr. T.

We watched Chiaia trying to hit Canis with her wood sword while he kept dancing out of reach. I saw him looking for another easy opening on her, there were plenty, but he was looking for the easiest one that he could use to embarrass her again. It came a few moments later as she over extended her reach, being exhausted but too stubborn and angry to quit, He ducked and lunged forward grabbing her sword wrist and with a quick twist and bend, made her drop her weapon as he kept moving towards her, rising up with his back turning to her and flipping her over him to the ground and finally dropped to his knees, her head between them, as one hand pulled her chin back exposing her throat and he brought a half fist down on her neck. Giving her a little tap but it was clear that she would have been dead had he been serious. He rolled away before she could kick him in retaliation. Grinning cockily as he walked over to us and took a spot on a blanket. I could see a slight sheen of sweat on him as grabbed an apple from the basket of food we had brought with us.

"No Fair!" Chiaia said rolling to her feet, face red from anger and embarrassment, rubbing her ass cheek which had been Canis' favorite target of embarrassment with either her sword or kicking with his boot. Her pride was hurt more than anything. The other girls weren't looking all that enthused at being the next ones to have to go through training, especially if it was going to be him doing it.

"Had you kept your temper, you might have had him if you would have bluffed or baited. Instead you let your emotions get the better of you. He saw this and took full advantage of it. He was being nice. he could have ended it multiple times with every clash." I informed her as I stood up, tomahawks rustling at my hips with my sidearm. They had all seen how deadly I was with them when they had challanged me, and I had been using training dummies at the time. I was better with a tomahawk in hand than they were with their swords.

"You are all so engrained with your sportsman's conduct and 'honor' that you refuse to fight as true warfighters. I can guarantee you that the enemy will not be as nice as you are. If you meet the enemy like this you might as well turn around and bend over and say "take it" because that is exactly what they are going to do." Theresia said, Ghost being tuckered out, was now under her chair for a nap. May had gotten up for her turn but Theresia had waved her hand making her sit back down as the older woman got up and moved to our improptu sparring ring. Some workers watching as they went about their business, some in mechaworkers. I had given permission to Miss Haze to send over a number of NORMALs to help with repairs but also to help strengthen defenses.

"Stay where you are." Theresia ordered, both the next girl who was about to come up, and Chiaia. "You want us to take you seriously? I will." She said as she stepped into the ring, feet slightly spread. I looked over to Theresia's seat and saw she took her gun, but her usual rounds were on the ground. I looked back to the ring, knowing exactly what she was going to do as I saw the barest hint of blue at the cylinder of her gun. This was going to be a hard hitting lesson.

Lashara raised her hand, about to signal the start. Chiaia got set for a charge, the second she moved Theresia pulled her gun and shot repeatedly, putting round after round into Chiaia's chest, all rounds hitting centermass. The crowd was stunned into silence, Lashara was in shock. Her hand hadn't even moved down, the match never started. Chiaia looked shocked and afraid reaching up to her chest as she felt wetness and she fell to her knees. 

"It... It hurts... It should hurt more...Right?" She said before she fell face first in a faint. I sighed as I stood up as the girls were just about to panic and start screaming, so focused they had been on the gun and the noise that they didn't look too closely at Chiaia.

"May get the bucket will you please?" I asked nicely as I turned Chiaia over. Her chest covered in in neon blue, pink and orange paint, little plastic bullets full of paint either beneath where she fell or still stuck to her clothing. Checking her pulse casually to make sure she didn't actually die from shock as May came up with the bucket. Theresia holstered her gun and crossed her arms waiting, a calm and cool expression on her face. Kenshi and his wives still in shock thinking she was dead until I had rolled her over and they could see the paint. Taking the bucket from May before I dumped it on Chiaia and she was shocked awake. Choking and sputtering sitting up and looking around wide eyed.

"Relax, you're not dead." I said before handing the bucket back to May before she walked off. Chiaia checking her chest again. Feeling for bullet holes, there were none of course but she was going to be bruised for the next couple days. She brought her fingers up looking at the paint on them and then looking at Theresia in shock, which was starting to turn to anger brought on by fear of death and what she thought was a very cruel joke.

"You wanted me to take you seriously? I took you seriously. I took care of you before you were ever a threat." Theresia said coldly looking down at the girl. She popped out the cylinder and popped out one of the bullets and held it up the plastic tip filled with green paint. "SIM rounds, everything is real except for the actual bullet. You think your enemy is going to fight fair just because you do? They will do the same if not worse than what I just did, and all it took was a couple seconds. Everyone else was being nice. I am not nice." Theresia said before she walked off, putting the SIM rounds away and reloading for lethal rounds. The loud clicks as she loaded up making Chiaia flinch. May had returned for her turn to teach and she helped Chiaia to her feet.

"It is that simple ladies. Either you kill them or they kill you. 'May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't.' It was something taught to me by my father, and a great man and leader said it long before him in one of the bloodiest wars our world has ever know. We are not here to be merciful, we are not here to be nice, we are not here to be honorable. We will kill, we will destroy, we will blow shit up, we will use every tactic available to us because that is exactly what the enemy is going to do to us. I promise you this, that the Lynx, Mecha-masters, and soldiers of the enemy will have been trained just as we have, and they will not rest until they have completely destroyed, broken and conquered you." I said looking at them all, hands on my hips, giving a hard look to all of them. May had come to stand by me and looked at me. I could see the disapproval in her eyes. She didn't want me to put them through the same training that I had gone through. Things were going to be bad yes, but not as bad as I made it seem. I was just so used to fighting dirty wars and battles both in a NEXT and on foot that I had almost forgotten that there was such a thing as an honor code in war and that not everyone was going to fight dirty.

" take a rest for an hour... Meet back here by then... I'll let May and Lilium take over." I said before I headed back to my spot and sat down. Kenshi and his wives breaking off. Some of them taking Chiaia away to talk with her. I could see Kenshi giving me a hard look, I didn't really care. You had to have a hard heart to do what I had to in ORCA. Knowing that much of the human race was going to die before we got off planet. It was something I would have to live with, knowing that I was responsible for so much death, to save our race as a whole, to know that I was both monster, and hero. People would only see the monster for many years to come. The hero wouldn't come until long after we left our planet. long after I was dead, or it would never come at all. I may always be viewed as a monster for the rest of human history.

"you don't have to be so hard on them Dare... It's not like back home..." Lilium said softly as she looked at me. Seeing my face and its hard set expression, remembering what I had to do in order to save the human race from extinction, the cost was, high, very high. I indirectly had a lot of innocent blood on my hands, something I knew I had to live with for the rest of my life.

"It's hard not too...look what I went through... Look what I had to do..." I said looking at her. she knew, they all knew my background, how I grew up and what Omer did to my home what they did to Joshua and my father. The many missions my father had taken, not all of them exactly clean, and my own. Seeing what my father did for a living to put food on the table and then I went and did the exact same thing.

" I know Dare, but this is NOT home. Yes we have to fight our own kind, yes they will fight like us. but the majority of that force is what Kenshi and the others are used to dealing with." She said looking at me and set her hand on mine. In the few weeks that we had been here, we had send out a number of drones, coming across various camps of the enemy force, and yes, about 80-90% had been the weapons and troops of this world. But that last percentage had been NORMALs and Arms Forts, the weapons of our world. The NEXTs were better hidden so we hadn't seen hide nor hair of them since the first sighting. We didn't know how many, or where they were, all we could do right now was wait for the first move in this grand game of war. Much of what I had assumed and initially planned for was thrown out the window. While the force was large, it was by no means what we had expected which also meant that any and all of their tech was going to be kept strictly to themselves. They would not be arming their allies. Instead it looked like a four sided war. us, the ORCA Brigade. And our opposite counterparts would deal with each other, while Kenshi and his forces would deal with their own counterparts. Though that didn't mean we weren't going to train them, to be better fighters, using better tactics. We were going to do what we could to increase his odds of survival while dealing with our side of the war.

"Alright... I'll let up... A little. though we still have to train some of them in NEXTs. If an Arms Fort or NORMALs shows up they will have no chance of taking them down unless they have at least one NEXT on standby, though it may as well be one of us." I said as she smiled seeing that she finally won. By our reports from our drones, there were a lot of Land Crabs of varying types, many more Giga Base-class Arms Forts and a couple of Eclipse. Though the most disturbing had been their main base which I knew it had to be which also had to have most of their NEXTs and NORMAL forces. There was only one and it was probably one of the most terrifying weapons ever created. They had Answerer. It was extremely dangerous to take down and much larger than the one I fought before, probabably to handle carrying NORMALs and NEXTs, but it wouldn't come here. Not unless they turned desperate. Had we not shown up, they probably would have brought it in because nothing could stop it, but between us and Motherwill, It wouldn't come anywhere near us. While standard NEXT weapons couldn't touch it at range. I was certain that Motherwill's cannons could bust through their Primal Armor, and we could take it down with NEXT weaponry if we had to and if we were close enough to where the PA wouldn't be able to destroy their rounds fast enough. That and I discovered that my MOONLIGHT was devastating to its weapons and wings. Despite all that power and the PA, it had very little actual armor plating which made it a very easy target once you disabled the missiles.

We could see Kenshi and his wives all together talking heatedly. They would occasionally glance over at us. I knew they didn't like the fact that we had taken over and I didn't give a damn. They would thank us when this was over. They didn't like it, but they also knew they didn't stand a chance against us, any of us. I had already proven myself. Canis was showing just how dangerous he was in hand to hand combat. He was one of a handful of people who could give me trouble if I wasn't careful, which was surprising because he never fought back when we abused him for his antics. maybe because he liked it, I don't know.

The group was walking back to us and getting up into their bleachers. May getting up and moving to the ring, she was the friendliest of us and would put them more at ease. She could probably train them so it sunk in better than than the rest of us since it was now clear they were afraid of Canis and terrified of Theresia and myself.

"I am going to be taking over training those of you who are not quite as up to speed as others of your group, don't worry I'll be a lot more gentle. After all I'm not a meanie like Darien over there, he just likes to bark a lot you know, Grrr.." she said throwing her thumb over her shoulder at me, growling playfully. Which got a couple of nervous giggles from the crowd, but they were warming up to her at lot faster than the rest of us. Lilium got up to go help. She was probably more suited to being an assistant than Canis, Theresia or myself at the moment. The two of them hadn't done anything to scare them. If anything they looked relieved when they were around because they had seen one, or both, reel me in on occasion during the last couple weeks, and with both of them taking over, it told the girls that they had once again 'collared the beast'. As some people have come to call it, which put them more at ease. I watched the two take over, lining the girls up in the field. Leading them through some basic warm up exercises, the girls much more relaxed and willing to listen to the two of them. Ghost had waddled over to me and looked right up at me after sitting. Sighing I reached into the basket and pulled out a ham and cheese sandwich, giving him a couple slices before eating the sandwich.

Many of the other students, male and female, were coming to watch the training session. Though mainly to stare at the otherworlders since we were still a new novelty to them. It didn't take us long to notice there was a larger population of females than males. Kenshi and his close wives stayed out of the training since they were better than the other girls and more experienced so we would leave them alone for now.

The principal and some of the teachers were watching us as they came up. Taking in the sight of all the girls in organized ranks as May and Lilium put them through a basic course of movments, stance, and attacks. the workers kept about their business though afew had come by to watch. The ones I had come to know as Hannah and Jozzy were standing together, watching May helping Lapis, with her stance. she was currently the only one of Kenshi's close wives to come out to the field to learn the basics. She certainly looked determined and hard working which got her respect points from us.

They had practiced for about an hour before May called for a water and bathroom break. The girls spreading out to either the water cooler or the bathroom facilities, looking much more relaxed and happier with Lilium and May training them. Lapis was looking nervous as she came over to us as we were all setting on blankets or chairs in the shade of trees, surprisingly, she was heading for Theresia, with her water bottle in hand, she was a very tiny girl and despite clearly being very nervous, she looked determined as well. Theresia looked up at her as she approached. Her expression as usual, was calm and carefully blank. Lapis fidgeted nervously before she looked up to look Theresia in the eye.

"Umm, I know I am in no position to ask... But you be willing to train me as you fight?" She asked, face flustered and nervous. Gaining a raised eyebrow from me, and surprisingly from Theresia as well.

"Why do you think I should train you and why me out of all of us?" Theresia asked looking at her. Crossing her legs and setting her hands in her lap. Lapis looked a little more nervous but she stayed rooted in her spot, so extra respect points for not backing down and running which I though she would do because that is how she came across at first.

"I want you to train me because I think that you and Mr. Vega have a point, and you look like you have seen a lot more than he has." she said shyly which got me to turn and look straight at her to which she almost back up but stopped as Theresia, surprisingly, laughed. I turned to her as she stopped and her expression softened a bit, almost motherly but with that hard edge of a trained soldier still behind it.

"Good answer, and yes I have more time on the battlefield the our young pup here." she said with that expression on her face still and glanced at me chuckling at my mock insulted growl before she briefly flipped the bird at me. "Alright Lapis, tell you what, I'll try training you, but know this, it is going to be hard. Harder than anything you have ever done. if you can't handle it, there is no shame in quitting, not everyone can go through the training regime that I went through. but if you make it through, you will earn a great deal of respect from all of us because you will be one tough little cookie." Theresia said as she stood up and looked at the rest of us. "I will handle this girl's training from now on, so you don't need to worry about her." Theresia said while Lapis looked up with a brighter expression and a little more determined and confident now that she had spoken to one of the scarier otherworlders and hadn't been sent off or laughed at.

Lapis and Theresia only walked a little bit away, still in the shade of our trees and NEXTs which were close by, Theresia already starting Lapis on a workout routine that she did along with her, this brought looks of surprise from the other girls as they all came back from their break. Seeing little Lapis taking direct instruction from one of those that scared them the most and that the same woman was going through the same work out with her, for an older woman she was very fit, constantly encouraging Lapis and pushing her to keep going. May and Lilium back to training the other girls while Kenshi and his close wives were in the shade of their bleachers. Lithia looked very surprised that Lapis had gone off on her own for a much harder training routine than the other girls. The others clearly in an easier class than Lapis was currently going through.

This continued for a few hours, stopping for breaks and lunch. Before it finally ended a couple hours past noon. The girls all soaked with sweat, Kenshi and his other wives joining in for the normal work outs after the basics were over with. all of us working out together except for Theresia and Lapis who were on their own routine, Theresia constantly pushing Lapis as she worked right beside her. Lapis looked like she wanted to cry at times but kept going, at the end of the day, she was leaning against the tree that Theresia used for shade, exhausted. Theresia sweating hard but still standing. encouraging the girl. as she rested. Everyone cleaning up, then I heard it, and turned very slowly to the small army of girls looking at Morga as she talked to Lithia.

"I don't think he is as tough as he acts or as good as he says, he beat us only because that Insanity of his is too advanced and he only beat us in combat on a fluke. he certainly takes orders from women like a good little boy." She said, indicating Lilium and May. " He probably has never seen a war like ours despite all his boasting. I don't think he even understands pain and loss, and talk about fashion, look at how he hides his face and arm. How can anyone wear an outfit like that." she said, still haughty and stuck up. The words she spoke setting off my anger, she was speaking loud enough to be heard, mainly to be seen as superior to her fellow wives, some of them even nodding in agreement. my friends hearing this either looked at her or me. My fists clenching in anger, Theresia, having heard the last lines. was about to rush her, and would have if Canis hadn't got a hold of her. Lilium seeing my anger and pain on my face. reaching up and rubbing my arm. Morga, seeing this, smirked liked she had hit a button, she didn't hit a button, she stepped on a fucking land mine. May grabbed my other arm seeing I was about to go after her. Lilium coming to help. I almost dragged them with me before I noticed them.

Morga looked a little fearful seeing my expression and how I was coming right for her and would have if May and Lily hadn't stopped me. Shaking in anger, my hands clenching and unclenching, wanting my hands to be around her neck. snarling before I turned away and started walking back for the NEXTs, Lily right beside me while May stayed between me and Morga, picking up hers and lilium's pets. Morga seeing me walk off, got more cocky and lost her fearful expression. "See? he obeys like a good boy. He knows who is superior." she said with arms over her chest. "He just likes to act out. Probably overcompensating for something. He has no idea what pain is." She said as she looked like haughty and completely cocky.

"I don't know pain huh?" I said softly, coming to a sudden halt, but loud enough to be heard. Reaching up and rubbing my covered right arm, Lilium stopping next to me as I stopped. Holding my arm infront of my so I could look at it, before reaching up to pull off the glove. they couldn't see what I was doing with my back to them.

Lilium saw what I was doing and reached up and grabbed my hand, knowing what I was going to do. " You don't have to do this...its not worth it..." She said to me, pleading a little as I reached up and pulled off my glasses. My eyes shut tight.

"No...I'm going to show them... Just this once, what pain and loss is." I said softly to her, reaching for, and pulling off my shirt. Some of the girls covering their eyes seeing what I was doing while others stared big eyed. The other students, workers, and teachers were all watching now, some of the other girls were looking on with interest seeing me starting to strip, until they saw what was being uncovered from my backside. They could see the ugly scar tissue that covered half my back from the right side that went from shoulder to waist, seeing all that raised and ugly scar tissue but what surprised them more was as I turned around so they could get a good look at me, at the scars that covered my right side, my right nipple gone as was any indication of my pec, walking forward with eyes shut still. Reaching up to pull off my bandana with my good hand, exposing the scars that covered the right side of my skull and upper face around my right eye, and they could now clearly see my biotech arm, all the gears, pistons and wires that made it work as it was connected to my torso where more metal workings that had replaced my upper right chest and back could be seen showing that I was a good deal of machine. I slowly raised my head, opening my eyes and exposing my biotech eye. Everyone looking completely shocked into silence as I looked around at them all. Holding up my right arm with fist clenched.

"Look at me... LOOK AT ME!" I roared out, commanding. All those who looked away from my disfigured body now all looked back transfixed at my command. The force in my force making them look. Morga looking horrified at me.

"I don't know pain? I don't know loss? take a good hard look... This is PAIN! I died in one of the hardest battles of my life! I lost over thirty percent of my body!" I yelled at them all as I walked around, completely exposed. Every transfixed at the monster in front of them. "The only reason I am standing before you today is because of two crazy old men who put me back together. This is the price of war... This is the price of fighting for what you believe in! Look at me!" I roared again as they were about to turn away again, Lilium had her face in her hands. The rest of my friends looked angry as I walked around, completely exposed, to drill this point into this bunch of children.

"I don't know loss? That NEXT we saw weeks ago? you want to know why I was so upset about it? Why I am so angry to see it? Its because that particular Lynx and NEXT killed my mother! That is Loss! That is Pain! You want to know why they call me Insanity? Take a wild fucking guess!" I snapped, looking at them all. Glaring at Morga as she stared back horrified at me.

"This war turned personal, and I will not rest until that bitch is dead at my feet! I know war, pain and loss better than any of you standing here!" I yelled at them all, glaring all around. "I have more blood on my hands than any of you could ever imagine. Next time think before you open your mouth, because next time I'll have you lying at my feet if you insult me like this again!" I snapped, looking hard at Morga before walking away with heavy, angry steps. Pulling on my shirt and glove again and tying my bandana back around my skull and putting on my glasses. My friends jogging after me. Theresia still looked pissed, I know I did. She took it almost as personally as I did.

We climbed back into our NEXTs, ghost riding on my shoulders, and boosted back home in silence though I know that Lilium was watching me through the cameras, May too for that matter. Both concerned for me as they knew my temper and how I felt about my injuries and mother. We were all back in the manor within half an hour and I was sitting in one of the chairs back in mine and Lilium's rooms. Lilium and May both there talking to me and calming me down slowly until they finally got exasperated with my mood and temper with their slow progress and dragged me up to the bedroom. Two hours later I was too tired to be angry anymore and passed out for a couple hours with Lily and May in each arm until dinner. We came down to the dining hall smelling roasted chicken and potatoes, both girls walking a bit bow legged but they looked satisfied that they had exhausted most of my anger out of me. As we walked in I froze, Kenshi and all his wives were there spread among the long dinner tables. It looked like Kenshi and some of the other girls had helped Miss Haze, Theresia and Canis cook dinner for everyone. Seeing them all there I quickly grabbed my bandana and glasses and pulled them on and glared at the other Lynx, walking in since Lily and May wouldn't let me back out.

"You could have said we had guests..." I hissed at them, before taking my spot. Noting that Morga was sitting as far from me as possible at the farthest table and at the farthest end of it while Kenshi and his other close wives sat at our table.

"We tried but at both times we tried there was either to much noise or you were sleeping like a rock." Canis said, smirking at us as he saw how Lilium and May were walking, I glared at him and picked up a baked potato and chucked it as hard as I could at his head He only grinned further after dodging it as I growled at him. Making sure that everything was covered by my bandana and glasses.

"We wanted to apologize, we didn't know what you had gone through up to this point. We are sincerely sorry for our co-wife's rude and apalling behavior." Princess Aura said as she stood up and bowed to us. I was really not in the mood to deal with any of them but unfortunately I had no choice in the matter. May and Lily taking their places next to me. I noticed that Lapis was sitting next to Theresia. She looked exhausted but it appeared she hadn't given up after her first day training with Theresia and so the older Lynx was giving her pointers on how to eat and train if Theresia didn't have time for her.

"Apologize...Accepted." I said, barely wincing as Lily elbowed me hard in the ribs knowing my temper and knowing I was going to deny it unless she made me. "Just make sure that none of those particular subjects are brought up again." I said looking at them all, seeing nods all around. They didn't want to have to see that again, though some were either staring hard at me or not at all. There was a morbid, grim fascination with staring at such injuries, it couldn't be helped. Some of them looked like they pitied me as they kept touching their own arms or heads as if they were trying to imagine what it was like to lose an arm or live with the injuries that I had.

Dinner was a louder affair than usual, the girls couldn't keep quiet for long, and what had began as quiet quick whispers had eventually turned into a lot of chatter and gossip as they got braver seeing that no one was stopping them from talking. Some occasional glances at me but they had slowed or stopped over time. Kenshi looked at me occasionally thorughout dinner. As if trying to understand me judging by personality, temper, and what history they got out of me or the others. We made a point to talk very little about ORCA and what we had done up til this point. They obviously wanted to know more as the girls kept bugging May or Lilium seeing as they were the friendliest of us. A few were even trying to get to know Theresia better seeing that the normally quiet and timid Lapis had gone up to her and Theresia didn't bite her head off and instead took the girl under her wing. My mood gradually improved over time, I was male, my temper either would last for hours or days or sometimes only a few minutes depending on circumstances. Males felt emotions just as strongly if not stronger than females, it was just that it was so ingrained in our brains since birth that any show of emotion was a sign of weakness that we didn't usually react externally as females did to things, though internally we felt it, we were just better at keeping things under wraps unless like earlier. Such a strong surge of emotions would get out and we would show it very clearly.

Lilium kept a close watch over me throughout dinner, making sure I behaved myself now since they had appologized to me. she chatted and talked with the girls though she kept checking on me because I was so quiet.

Miss Haze leaned in as she finished her plate, looking at me. "They have started moving. The drones I sent out earlier today showed a handful of Land Crabs of Union origin on their way. They also have a lot of mechanoids, mechaworkers and foot soldiers on the move as well. They might be here in a week since they are trying to be cautious and avoid my drones. No idea how many NORMALs or even NEXTs are in those Land Crabs, but they will devastate Kenshi's forces unless we deal with them. That leaves Kenshi and his troops to deal with their opposing counter parts. One last thing, two of the mechanoids stood out. A dark blue one who looks like the skin of his tain was skinned off, and a red and grey one next to it. They certainly stood out a lot more than the other mechanoids. Not sure how critical that is or what it means to Kenshi and the others, but we should tell them in the meeting tomorrow before we push their training more. We will have to train them in between clashes. I think they will keep coming to us because we are sitting on a prime piece of real estate, they have nothing at their camps that will make us want to go to them so lets take the home field advantage and keep it. the only exception is that Answerer that they have. I don't see it moving anytime soon but still, we need to keep our eyes on it. " she reported to me. Passing along her PDA which showed me everything she had observed for today.

"Agreed, the Answerer will wipe out everyone and everything here if it comes before we can destroy it. Keep the main cannons aimed in its general direction and if it ever goes on the move and comes into range, open fire. If need be, we will send out NORMAL drones to harrass some of their camps and keep them hard linked to our records so if a NEXT comes out, we can at least do a quick search and destroy to deal with it so they don't come at us in force, things could end very badly if they throw everything at us at once because they outnumber us already in NORMALs and Arms Forts, but if they add NEXTs to the mix we will be very hard pressed to hold them off. But they won't do that because that will leave Answerer and their other soft targets exposed to us. I'll handle Answerer myself if I have to if it comes to it. Just be ready to start harrassing their camps with NORMALs and have the assembly lines warmed up and ready to build replacements. "I said looking at all the data and then issuing orders. We had discovered that another sub-pocket of Motherwill was completely dedicated to assembling NORMALs and spare NEXT parts and weapons as well as ammo which finally answered our question of how our repairs, ammo and reinforcements would be handled. We kept finding new things about Motherwill every few days or so.

I leaned back in my seat after handing Miss Haze back her PDA, calmer and more focused with a clear objective in front of me. My previous anger and bad mood gone as I focused on the task at hand. Looking around at all of the carefree girls. I was going to have to let Kenshi lead his own forces for the most part while we dealt with keeping the others off their backs. Setting my hands on the table as I started planning our attack and defense strategies, the first move of this massive chess game of war has been taken. The clock was ticking. Time to prepare for our counterattack. I could only hope that my target would be in the first assault. The war has begun.

Chapter 10 is finally done. hit writers block halfway through and was working on how to get through It and a friend might get his wish earlier than expected. we will see, for now i will see what flows through my hands for Chapter 11. hope you enjoyed the chapter. constructive criticism is appreciated, bitches gripes complaints? shoot me a message, just don't be an idiot about it.


	11. Chapter 11

Standard Disclaimer here. I do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. This is a work of fanfiction. The previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 11: War for Answer.

"Where are they Miss Haze?" I asked as our forces were getting ready for battle The week had passed slowly as we pushed the training and for repairs to the damaged frames. Mexiah had worked around the clock with Wahanly to repair the mechanoids with other Sacred Mecha-Guardians to be ready for the beginnings of war. Theresia had drawn short straw and so she was currently baby sitting Kenshi in the event that our kind of tech showed up on their end of things. She had several GA SOLARWINDs and Aldra GOPPERT-G3s as back up to hold the line long enough in the event that a NEXT showed up. We had taken up seperate positions in pairs while we had other NORMALs spread around. Many of the BFF Silent Avalanche NORMALs were camoflaged around the outside of the valley hidden in the trees in powersave mode while a number of Aldra and GA NORMALs were station around the school and we had finished off with a number of Arisawa ZENGAME at various entrances and around the valley edge. Kenshi's team of Mechanoids were staying relatively close together with others of their small army, but spread out enough that a well placed explosive round wouldn't take them all out like I had shown them the first and only time they fought Insanity.

"The Land Crabs are a little ways off still, when they come within range of the small cannons I will have Motherwill open fire. I'll save the long range cannons for a 'just in case' scenario but I don't think we will need them." She said to us as she scanned the area with Motherwill's sensors. Motherwill's flight decks were opening up and the A.I. controlled NORMALs were either bracing for long range sniping or getting into position to let off their missiles and defend the Motherwill. The missile batteries were all opening up and the smaller long range cannons were tracking for targets. there were a number of Omer flight NORMALs in the air patrolling. All the A.I. reporting to Motherwill's more advanced A.I. system that was assisting Miss Haze in the control room and reporting anything critical that she couldn't keep track of. Our own personal A.I. were busy running a variety of system checks and scans for us, they were learning at a fast rate and becoming more familiar to us, though they still gave me the creeps, not to mention since Insanity's A.I. was starting to turn into something of a smart ass, I could hear Canis arguing with his own which was nagging him constantly. His was turning into a worry wart and bugging the hell out of him on procedure and tactics and such, generally just making a nuisance of itself, which I was almost glad that mine just let me do my own thing knowing I wouldn't listen to it... almost...

"Systems are functioning normally. A few glitches in the firing system have been corrected and that little quirk in the air condition? Just took care of that too, thank you very much. You know, you really are lazy when it comes to repairing these minor issues. do we need an intervention?" Isanity rattled off its report and checks to me. knowing full well the last bit was going to annoy me.

"Insanity?" I asked through gritted teeth. looking up at one of the cockpit cameras, basically looking it 'in the eye'.

"Yes Darien?" It said in reply. I could practically see its grin since its tone made very clear it was being as sarcastic as possible.

"Shut Up." I growled before glancing over to where Lily and May were stationed. A small army of SOLARWINDs were close by to back them up as well as standard snipers who were lined up in rows close by who were be following Lily's orders. Their team was to defend the Holy Land while Canis and I were to harrass their Arms Forts and their defensive forces protecting them. The sniper NORMALs had orders to start firing as soon as they came even close to range while the SOLARWINDs were to smoke anyone else out of hiding. Everyone had orders to keep them busy while Kenshi and his force took care of the Mechanoids and Mechaworkers. All other noncombatants were send to safety deep inside the Holy Land or to Motherwill. Some of them were assisting Miss Haze and the principal in the command center. We had spent as much time as we could training some of Kenshi's wives to handle working in the center as Operators and working the instruments, some had been trained as gunners and were controlling at least half of the guns and missiles.

"Dare the drones report that the Arms Forts have stopped outside our range of fire and have started unloading NORMALS and Mechaworkers. Some of the workers appear to be modified to carry carts full of Mechanoid pods and what appears to be some kinda of launcher for them. I guess some of the fighters from the Holy Land war took a leaf from Kenshi's book to get their mechanoids into the Holy Land. They are outside of the draft so we can't send any of the mechanoids but I sent some of the Omer ARGINEs to harrass them and destroy as many as possible though they have a number of SOLARWINDS protecting them, some of the NORMALs dashed into the trees and are trying to avoid detection from camera and have deployed ECM. Still scanning for NEXTs but I suggest checking the forest for those NORMALs. I'll keep you posted if the drones or NORMALs spot anything." Miss Haze said as she gave us what intel was available to us. Canis and I flying up and towards the direction of the forest and the Arms Forts, both of us landing on the cliffs and skating into the trees. We could see the ARGINEs flying above and ahead of us.

"Dare, the Land Crabs are on the move again. They are starting to rush in now. They chased off the drones so if there was a time for the NEXTs to come out it would be now, so be aware." Miss Haze said over comes as Canis and I skated further into the forest while keeping our eyes on our radars waiting for anything that showed up or if we encountered ECM we would know that they were in the area.

"Darien, ECM detected to the north" Insanity said as it was checking whatever didn't have my attention for the moment. as annoying as it could be it did know how to do its job.

"Roger that, Canis you heard it, lets move." I said as Canis and I veered north we saw the ARGINES swooping down dive bombing their targets and saw return fire up ahead and so we both Over Boosted to get there. The first shots had been fired. the war had begun. Canis and I boosted into the fray. I stayed low cutting down anything that was close by with the MOONLIGHT while CANIS flew into the air and started firing missiles all around. We were trying to get closer to the mechanoids and mecha-workers as the mecha-workers pulled their carts and others pulled their catapult/slingshots, loading up Mechanoids and weapons and getting them in range before starting to launch off as many as they could. We could see the long range cannons firing from Motherwill at the LANDCRABS while they rushed foreward, firing cannon rounds and strafing laser at the Motherwill or at our supporting NORMALs. Motherwill's cannons also targeting as many of the flying Mechapods and weapon barrels as they could hit.

"Dare we have NORMALs touching down down on the Holy Land, mechanoids too, they are morphing as they drop. Kenshi's troops are engaging and our NORMALS are engaging the opposing NORMALs as they land. A few tried to get close to Kenshi though Theresia blasted them apart." May said over comms reporting their situation. I took a quick glance at the window that popped up showing what they were seeing.

"How are the girls doing on the guns?" I asked while dodging a SOLARWIND blasting its bazooka at me. Boosting to get around it before I cut it in half. The ARGINEs were down to half their number though they at least took out a good deal of the mechanoids, workers and many of their NORMAL guards. Canis and I were boosting all over the place, Canis destroying many of the SOLARWINDS with single shots from the BECRUX while keeping others moving with his Omer rifle.

"they seem to be alright, they are at least hitting targets though I doubt they would be lethal shots if not for Motherwill's A.I. they seem to be highly relunctant to deliver lethal blows." Lilium said while she was busy dodging missiles launched from a NORMAL before she took it down with her laser rifle. She was busy taking out a number of enemy ARGINEs and DULAKEs with her long range weaponry while May was destroying a lot of the less armored NORMALs with single shots from her bazooka or raining pain with the gatling gun or her vertical missiles. the two of them worked well together.

"Some are leaving their controls and Motherwill is taking over, not that big a deal but it makes the point that they are not ready for real war." Miss Haze said over comms while she kept shifting targets for the cannons and missiles taking on whatever seemed most critical. "A few are sticking it out and are getting less and less help from Motherwill. they seem to be taking the more deadly aspects of war better than others and- Oh crap, flying jeep. " Miss Haze said over the comms and she send what she was seeing on screen as we saw a number of heavy choppers rush in over the edge and fly low. releasing full armed and armored jeeps with full crews. looks like they were armed with heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. the jeeps rushing around avoiding fire while firing at our mechanoids. heavy assault helicopters were rushing in and keeping everyone busy with missiles and rockets the Mechanoids taking a lot of damage mainly because of the choppers.

"Miss Haze send out another wave of ARGINEs and have the snipers start targeting the flyers. Theresia have your NORMALs start firing on the jeeps before they do any real damage and make sure we don't get any runners. We do not want to have to chase them around on foot anywhere inside. " I ordered seeing the battle in the Holy land start to get more complicated, that was before I felt a heavy bazooka shell impact and explode in my back. I turn boosted around, thinking that that felt a lot more destructive than usual for a GA NORMAL grade bazooka and I got my answer. There was a GA NEXT behind me that took me by surprise.

"Darien I just saw a large chunk of your AP drop, what just happened?" Miss Haze said over comms. focusing back on me and linking to my camera's and saw what I saw. "Ahh hell, we got NEXTs." She said while trying to scan the area and get targeting solutions for the cannons and missiles. I boosted away dancing out of the way of a barrage of vertical missiles only to take a sniper round to the chest and I saw an IRREGULAR flying far off and another NEXT that jumped up and was firing away with a small sniper cannon and what looked like PM vertical missiles. I had to rush out of the way as fast as I could while being sniped at before taking another heavy bazooka shell in the back followed by a very heavy missile. Canis overboosted over to me and took the second missile though I still got a good chunk of the backlash. both of us heavily damaged in the suprise attack. The backup ARGINES flying our way while Canis and I overboosted to get away and let our KP recharge and give us breathing room to regroup. That ambush almost took us out with the heavy firepower. Our rear cameras scanning the enemy NEXTs one was a old heavy SUNSHINE model with two BIGSIOUX on its back and a GA Bazooka in the right hand and a arm mounted gatling gun on the left. the flying sniper was definately an irregular with BFF 063 head and 047 arms, a TELLUS core and EKHAZAR legs. a heavy BFF 061 sniper rifle in it's right hand and a 051 rifle in the left. it looked like OSAGE and MP-901 vertical missiles on its back and the other sniper was a more traditional BFF 047 with assault rifles in its hands and a small sniper cannon and another 901 on its back. Both snipers had BFF flares on their arms so it was going to be tricky hitting them from a distance.

"Darien get out of there now! Regroup back on the island." Miss Haze yelled over comms while Canis and I booked it as fast as we could having to dodge a lot of missile barrages and the heavy missiles. and still getting hits from the sniper rifle and cannon. they certainly were not amateurs and were working together covering each other. the SUNSHINE was the muscles but the other two would keep us busy from ganging up on him. Especially after that devastating ambush.

"Kasumi fire the large cannons and missiles at them, we have to keep them off Dare and Canis until we regroup." Theresia called over comms while Kenshi and his small army were busy fighting off a swarm of mechanoids. I could see that the boy was much better against an opponent on their terms. He and his wives were pushing back the enemy mechas. He and Chiaia were especially skilled together as she seemed to have copied a few of his moves. Wahan using her gunpowder cannon next to Yukine while Aura and Lithia provided long range archery fire. Theresia was next to Lapis who was watching everyone elses backs with her spear and backed up by the Rainbow Quartet. Morgan was in the thick of a large gathering of mechas as she ripped them appart with her axes. everyone else leaving her to her own devices.

"You know, that really friggin' hurt..." Canis said to me as we boosted to the island and landed close to the girls. Lily and May catching use and helping us upright while the cannons sounded off and we saw the massive projectiles fly past into the woods followed by a thick barrage of missiles. Lily firing over my shoulder with her laser rifle as the NEXTs were dodging back and forth trying to avoid the sudden assault from Motherwill. they might have been able to dodge the cannons but the missiles were tearing them up. as were a number of BFF sniper NORMALs. Lily was targeting the SUNSHINE since it was the biggest power threat and also weak to her laser rifle. her missiles targeting the 047 with May's verticals following suit. trying to make the snipers run out of their flares.

"Canis, target the 047 with Lily. May, keep that IRREGULAR busy. I have a score to settle with Mr. SUNSHINE boy." I ordered before taking off boosting for the heavy while the others did as told. I was hurt badly but I was pissed and I could still run circles around the SUNSHINE while my friends kept the snipers busy. the SUNSHINE spun towards me and fired both heavy missiles at me I boosted to get around him while he was running a barrage of chaingun fire at me with the occasional bazooka round thrown in. i noticed he had OMER side boosters on and he turn boosted very quick to keep track of me and keep me from getting behind him, smart, but not smart enough. dodging the current missiles and then opened fire with my motor cobra as I got in range after timing his fire rate and blew up his next set of BIGSIOUX missiles in his face, blasting him with the SIRIUS as I closed in and then cut him in half with the MOONLIGHT. With the loss of their heavy frontline fighter, the snipers were easy. They had eventually ran out of flares from the constant barrages from my friends and Motherwill and with them distracting them I moved in for the kill as Canis overboosted in range as well, wanting payback, both of us too close for the sniper rifle and cannon. I targeted the IRREGULAR since he had a TELLUS core. blowing holes in him with the TRAVERS while Canis took care of the 047 with his BECRUX. neither one of them really prepare for close range combat which made them easy pickings without having to worry about heavy fire in our backs.

"God damn it... Darien we have a couple squads of foot soldiers who broke into the school buildings. they are empty thankfully but others broke into the halls that lead down into the areas where the non combatants are hiding. we will have to clear them out. " Miss Haze said as camera feeds showed enemy troops breaking into various school buildings and the halls that led to the shelters. Jeeps were either abandoned or destroyed. others were still running around trying to avoid fire from the NORMALs though they didn't last long. With most of the enemy force destroyed, Miss Haze turned the large cannons on the Land Crabs to end that particular headache while our NEXTs moved to the buildings that the enemy soldiers occupied. Our NORMALs were mopping up the stragglers and a couple of the Silent Avalanche NORMALs were picking off the remaining mechanoids and mecha-workers as they tried to run seeing that their assault force had just been wiped out. We didn't want any survivors going back and reporting our tactics and strategies.

"Alright we are going to clear out the halls down to the shelters. We will have Kenshi's people clear the empty buildings. Thersia, Lily, you two stay out here and guard the NEXTs Canis, May, on me." I ordered as the cockpit opened up and Insanity knelt down to let me out. Climbing down and followed by Canis and May. Looking back I saw that Beast and Insanity had taken a beating from those NEXTs. It was a rookie mistake. One of us should have been visually scanning for NEXTs but we got too comfortable with just NORMALs at that moment. Judging by the LYNX and NEXTs, while not amateurs, were probably just a small stone cast in to test the waters and see what we would do. I knew they had to have better LYNX and NEXTs. This was only the first battle. they wouldn't send out their best just yet.

"shhh...be very very quiet, we're hunting shit heads..." Canis said as he cocked his rifle. May and I doing the same while checking that our body armor was good to go.

"Canis?" I said though my tone made it clear it was a question to the man in question.

"Yes Darien?" He said, though I knew he was smirking as we moved. I took point while he brought up the rear. May was in the middle.

"Shut up." Was all I said while my bionic eye started scanning and targeting. Looking for any signs or clues as to where they went. scanning through various filters before stopping on a infrared that took in recent heat and I could see their tracks. "Alright, going silent, link to our cams." I said as I turned on my helmet cam, putting my earpiece in so I had comms with Motherwill. Canis and May doing the same before we headed in. Slowly heading down the halls. Clearing one room by another and leaving infrared marks on rooms we checked. I took up point with May in the middle and Canis being our rearguard. We moved slow and quiet, all of us having screwed silencer's on our guns. We all carried extra gear. I carried a more modern version of a old XM25 and May carried a short 12ga shotgun on her back for blowing locks and room clearing. Canis carried a small sachel full of personnel explosives, setting claymore traps covering our asses and by rooms we cleared to keep the enemy from trying to sneak behind us.

We moved deeper in, tracking the enemy soldiers, and heard crying from one of the rooms as well as a slap and someone barking out orders to keep the hostages quiet. Looks like they broke into one of the safe rooms and took girls hostage. We moved in close to the closed door, stacking on opposite sides of the door. I stood to the left of the door by the handle against the wall and May was on the opposite side with Canis who was stacked behind her. Canis readied a couple flashbangs while May pulled her shotgun and placed it against the door lock mechanism. They looked at me and I nodded, turning my head as May gave two quick blasts blowing out the lock, I performed a spinning back kick opening the door and Canis tossed the grenades inside. We covered our eyes and ears briefly as the flashbangs went off. Hearing screaming and yelling as we rushed in one after the other, spreading out and opening fire. Pushing girls down as we moved in, the enemy troops were all blinded and as such, were firing blind. Occasional rounds hit our armor but we put them all down one by one as fast as possible before they could recover. Girls still on the ground, screaming and crying. Some having been hit by stray shots from the enemy troops. They looked like a mix of soldiers wearing uniforms of this world of an odd brown/burgandy color and others wearing uniforms and clothing similar to our own. The firefight lasted all of two to three minutes. One of the native soldiers had rushed my blind side when he recovered from the blinding. Knocking me down and we ended up in a wrestling match. He kept trying to stab me with his knife while I had to keep a hold of his wrist to stop him. I brought my fist up hard under his jaw. stunning him briefly but he only sneered when I didn't move my knuckles from his jaw.

"That all you got? My kid hits harder than you." He said trying to pull his wrist from my left hand but it was locked tight and he looked suddenly confused at my strength.

"My best shot? no...you aren't worth It. Keeping thinking about your kid, it is the last thought you will have in this life...now go to hell." I growled out lowly. He started to say something till he felt something on the back of my wrist move and he looked confused for a split second before a shotgun round blew his head apart from his jaw up. The round having blasted through my sleeve straight into his head. His brain and blood splattering over the floor and wall. shoving his dead weight off of me and getting up. Pulling my sleeve back exposing the firearm in my wrist. ejecting the empty shell and reloading it before the firearm sunk back into its housing before I pulled my sleeve back down. picking up my rifle. Canis snorted seeing the guy's head while he and May started helping the girls cutting them loose and helping the ones who were hurt. Tending to their wounds.

"Miss Haze? we cleared the building, all targets are dead, hostages secure. We have wounded non-coms." I reported, breaking radio silence finally. Moving to snoop through the dead soldiers' pockets one by one, looking for anything to tell us who they were, what their orders were, maps. crypto, anything and everything that we could use.

"Understood. Dare, Kenshi just reported back. They cleared their building. they have live prisoners. I suggest we take and interrogate them ourselves." Miss Haze reported back. All the action outside had completely quieted down and they were in the process of checking on damage and clean up.

"Canis, head out and clear up your traps, we don't want anyone coming in and getting pump full of shrapnel. " I ordered while moving to help May with one girl who had a round go through her thigh. We had to tourniquet her leg because the bullet had gone through her femoral artery and stuff her wound with a clotting agent. Canis walked off to take care of his traps. The girls were all still terrified and many of them fainted or puked at the sight of all the dead bodies and blood. I shook my head and closed my eyes. These people weren't ready for war, they were all still kids just playing at war.

A couple hours later we had all the hostages out and being taken care of. Our NORMALs were cleaning up the rubble and wrecked NORMALs and mechanoids and mecha-workers. The rubble being cleared out and the dead were being given their last rites. Kenshi and his wives all made it out ok, but many of their mecha master allies and common soldiers had been killed in action. Motherwill was churning out brand new NORMALs from its forges to replace the ones we lost as well as fabricating ammo to reload our weapons. My team was currently back in Motherwill around the table in the study going over everything we pulled off the bodies and from the wreakages of NORMALs and vehicles. the prisoners were locked in separate cells in the brig watched over by mini NORMALs gagged and blindfolded. We didn't want them communicating with each other.

"Dare, I keep coming across one word in many of these files. I think this is who is calling the shots though I can't tell if it is the name of a person, object or group. The word I keep coming across, is 'SINNER'." Lilium said as she held out a set of orders half burned, from one of the NEXT wreakages we found. I took the papers from her looking them over. what was legible was that 'SINNER' had issued orders for a quick blitz strike to test defenses as well as babysitting some little douchebag, the words on the paper, not mine, named Dag-something, the rest was burned too badly to read. There was something else in this set of orders and others about recovering the Mecha-Lord, though for what I couldn't tell. We managed to pull something from some of their less damaged computer files from the NEXTs and NORMALs of some of their small staging areas as well as crypto codes. So I knew what our next moves were.

"Well we have a much better starting point now. We need to start making plans and start working on hit and run tactics. take out their supply lines and caches, push them back a little and make then think twice about attacking us again. and hopefully on these raids we could get intel on their NEXT forces, the real threat that we had to worry about. We also needed to find out who or what this, 'SINNER' was. Whatever it was, it was important.

"I think we need to run things a little closer to how we do things back home. Two of us go and attack one of these targets tomorrow and the others standby here to protect Kenshi and the holy land." Miss Haze said as she was flipping through a file that was scavenged from one of the Land Crabs.

"Agreed. I'll run out to one of them tomorrow. May. I could use your assistance, we will need a lot of firepower." Theresia said as she set down one of the crypto tools we had confiscated. She had been busy unlocking it and downloading the codes to our systems so we could start hacking their comms.

"Alright. you handle that. Canis, you will be on standby for their back up if they need it. Lily? you and I need to talk to Kenshi and the others about our next moves." I said while setting down the papers. Ghost was in my lap sleeping. snoring rather loudly for a little furball. We may have won the battle, but the war was far from over, and I knew that it was only going to get worse. This was only a skirmish despite the magnitude of the battle. those NEXTs would have had us had we been any less skilled and had they been better than they were. They got the drop on us and it almost cost us. There had to be better and more dangerous LYNX out there. We knew at least one was out there. and there had to be more, many more. you didn't throw NEXT and LYNX away like that unless you did.

"I'll keep Motherwill working on replacing our downed NORMALs. Also I'll start training some of these girls as operators, the tougher ones, and while I'm at it, I'll send some more drones out tomorrow to scout our list of targets" Miss Haze said while she stood up and stretched out.

"Alright, we'll interrogate the prisoners in the morning before we talk to Kenshi, see what else we can get out of them. take a break people. We certainly earned it today." I said while standing. Picking the still sleeping ferret and setting him on my shoulder. Everyone else getting up and splitting up. I had made my way out of our manor and out to the hanger, checking on Insanity. Watching the machines make repairs and reload the weapons as I walked up to the console and started to work. My hands a blur over the controls. checking on the firing systems and working on revamping the sensors and radar.

"Can I ask you something?" A robotic male voice called out from Insanity. The A.I. sounded serious for once. The head of Insanity tilting down to look at me.

"What is it?" I asked, not stopping while I continued to fiddle with the computer systems.

"Why do you fight?" Insanity asked. The question stopped me for a brief second before I continued to work checking that the reaction time was still green.

"Ask me that a couple years ago and I'd say it was to make a living, to follow my parents footsteps. To not be bound by the companies that basically enslaved the rest of the human race back home after the National Dismantlement War. Now? I fight for a future worth living in. Giving the human race a second chance." I told the machine. Stopping what I was doing to look up at it.

"A second chance? After all the people you killed, directly and indirectly, while working with ORCA?" Insanity said as it looked down at me.

"Yes... Many had to die to give the rest of humanity a chance to leave our planet. To escape to the stars, and begin again. Their blood is on my hands, whether I directly killed them or not doesn't matter. It is something that I have to live with. But the race will continue. Hopefully the Crazy Bitch holds up her end of the bargain..."I told Insanity while finishing my work quickly.

"one last question... Why didn't you delete me just now?" Insanity just asked out of the blue as I shut the console down for the night. His tone clearly curious and somewhat surprised. He had noticed that I had pulled up the system and had worked right up until all I had to do was push a button and purge him.

"Because while you are a royal pain in my ass, you also watch my back. Maybe later if you piss me off some more. But for now, you're safe. Good night Insanity..." I said and started walking off. The hanger main lights shutting off leaving only the emergency red lights on. Hopping in the cart I had driven and drove out of the hanger and back to the manor. Insanity was getting more intelligent and aware by the day, it was constantly watching and learning.

Upon arriving back up I noticed that Kenshi and his wives were over for dinner again. Sighing before heading in. knowing we were going to have a long chat over dinner and tomorrow in the morning. I just wanted dinner and sleep, not play twenty questions with a bunch of kids. Well I might as well get it over with, and see how they took war on our level and not theirs.

IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE! well finally worked the motivation to finish a chapter that was half written for months. not my greatest work but im hoping to improve on the next chapter. I can see the story start to finish in my mind but putting it to paper is a royal pain in the ass. and i already got future stories planned but those as well as new ones that just formed are making it hard to focus on just one story. hope you enjoy it and to my few loyal readers. I'll try to finish this project for you all.


	12. Chapter 12

Standard Disclaimer here. I do not own Armored Core or Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar. This is a work of fanfiction. The previously stated properties belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 12: Upgrading an Answer.

I woke up the next morning after our first victory and the celebration party that Kenshi's wives wanted to throw like they had just won the war. It was far too early to be celebrating and besides which, it had just been another day to us Lynx. Kenshi and his wives had taken over the barracks since they felt safer inside Motherwill instead of out of it. All their mechanoids were in the garage with our NEXTs which were being repaired and resupplied. Predictably, during the feast that they insisted on having, they were practically puppy dog eyeballing us asking how they did. Thankfully Kenshi's close circle of wives were better disciplined, unfortunately the others vastly outnumbered their more disciplined and respectful co-wives and so they were trying to talk our ears off during dinner. Ghost, being smarter than me for once, had immediately fled the dining room on seeing the large party and hid in our room. Unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of retreating, not that Lily would let me anyway. If she was going to suffer, she made damn sure I suffered with her and she held onto me most of the night to keep me from fleeing.

I had headed for the bathroom for my usual morning shower. Lily was still out like a light and snoozing soundly in bed. Ghost had, for once, behaved himself and slept in his little hammock in his cage. I knew that we had to interrogate the POWs that Kenshi's group had captured while Theresia and May went out along with Canis to act as emergency backup but we had to change plans slightly again. I still had to have a chat with Kenshi and his wives though I would have to leave the interrogating to Theresia since she was better at it after she got back.

Getting out of the shower after I finished. The noise, as usual, waking up Lily who yawned and sat up, stretching as she watched as I came out drying off. My mechanical parts were dull in the light of day, not shining due to the matte coating. I was planning on working some upgrades into my arm with whatever I could find in the lab we had at the facility seeing as the Crazy Lady was kind enough to leave it along with a lot of very high tech goodies laying around. Stuff that was far beyond what we currently had back home. Ghost, hearing me, had woken up and yawned before stretching and waddling downstairs for breakfast.

We performed our usual morning routines before heading out to the main dining room. It was our turn to cook today so we both got up earlier than usual. The two of us busy getting everything ready while the dining room filled up slowly. Theresia coming into the kitchen to get her cup of coffee that we had started up as soon as we had walked in earlier. Neither of us wanting to be on her bad side this early in the morning until she got her coffee. Kasumi had taken a seat followed by her cats. A solid black short hair with a White patch on his chest and a big furry tabby. We all had pets. Pets were pretty common for Lynx who didn't have a lot to begin with at the Collared facility, because we Lynx were pretty independent even for those who belonged to a company with other Lynx so pets sort of filled the void.

May walked in followed by Canis, both of them dressed for combat as was Theresia since they were all heading out after breakfast for a search and destroy mission. While we temporarily lost half of our Lynx force for this mission, the remaining Lynx plus the Motherwill and its army of NORMALS were no pushovers if something were to happen. After them, the room filled up with Kenshi's army of wives and the young man himself who didn't look like he slept much last night. I felt sorry for the poor bastard but I was going to stay out of it.

"What did you do with the soldiers we captured?" Princess Aura asked as she took her place the main large table that we Lynx and Kenshi and his closest wives sat at. Lithia sat next to her and then Lapis after her. I sat at the end with Lily beside me and May across. Theresia was next to her and then there was Miss Haze, on the other side of Lily was Canis. The dogs were in the kitchen with the cats with their bowls of food. Ghost on the other hand was on my shoulder as usual, occasionally stealing a piece of bacon or sausage.

"They are in the brig. That is where they will stay till we get around to questioning them. "I said looking up at her. I could see the corner of Theresia's mouth twitch slightly. Knowing why I put it nicely. They would probably frown on a harsher word than 'questioning' and probably try to keep us from doing our job. They were not realistic and children. the majority of them were not older than fifteen to sixteen though there were others like Lithia and Aura who were a little older, though that didn't mean much when it came to maturity. Especially when it comes to war.

"Why not let us ask a few questions? We want answers for who is doing this and why." Princess Lashara said as she heard Aura and my conversation. The other girls and Kenshi looking up as well.

"Because we do things differently than you, and there are soldiers like us among them. They won't answer simple questions." Theresia said quietly, but loud enough to be heard, before she took a sip of her coffee.

"But if they won't answer questions then why bother asking?" Lapis asked innocent like the rest of the girls. Not knowing the darker side to warfare.

"Because we know how to make them answer" I said in reply. Turning my head slightly to look at Lapis as she looked me in the eye, or looked at her reflection in my glasses. "You should all get your mechanoids repaired and get to work on getting the damage to the holy land repaired and defenses shored up. This was just the first battle. There are many to come." I said before downing a glass of OJ before filling it again. The girls looking at me not understanding, though looking at Aura being one of the most mature, I think she was starting to suspect what I meant and from the look on Kenshi's face, I think he knew, he was giving me a hard look. I knew he came from an earth similar to our own. So he had probably seen plenty of movies to somewhat catch the gist of what we were saying in euphemisms.

Theresia, May and Canis finished their meals and stood up and interrupted the conversation with their sudden movements distracting the girls. Getting the hint, I wolfed my food down and stood up. Setting a hand on Lily's shoulder and giving a little squeeze while she nodded before I walked off, Ghost leaping from my shoulders to her own. I left the dining hall and headed back to my room to grab my tomahawks and my sidearm before heading out. Seeing Kenshi's wives heading out of the dining hall as I was leaving. I could see that one of the carts was gone meaning that the Theresia and the others had gone out on their mission. I took another cart and waited for Lily and Miss Haze since they were better at dealing with tech than I was. Both of them showing up after a while and we took off heading for the main facility. Specifically the main science and lab facility.

"What exactly are you planning on doing?" Lily said as she and Miss Haze walked with me as we headed for the main R&amp;D lab. Slipping inside and heading for the lab I had taken over as my own. While I didn't have the skill that Doc Joe and Abe Marsh did. I had a decent understanding on how my arm worked, and the AI could help with much of what I wanted to do. In a case in the middle of the room was a copy of my arm that I had been working on. Most of it was the exact same, just with a few additions I had been toying with for a while now.

"You'll see." I said with a somewhat cryptic smile as I got to work. Motherwill's AI let Insanity's AI come into the system to assist. It was mainly a combat AI however it had to understand weapons and how they worked and so such information was programmed into it, and because it was created from a program from the Crazy Lady, it was far more advanced than any AI of our world.

I started working on attaching a small device into the new arm where the small firearm was originally stored. With the new tech, I could have much more stored away in what I can only describe as an alternate dimension or a sub-space. Much like how the inside of Motherwill was, now the arm had a similar upgrade. It had the shotgun attachment but this time with multiple rounds that would auto load and another attachment was something along the lines of a semi auto laser gun for mid-range engagement, and now this piece, which looked like a smaller version of the MOONLIGHT laser blade.

Motherwill and Insanity's AI running many mock tests in the computer as well as calibrating the power needed, not to mention the power source that was needed to power the damn thing inside my arm. Much of the Crazy Lady's tech ran around the idea that much of the workings and mechanics and electronics operated in another alternate space which took up no room on whatever it was installed. Motherwill did most of the work getting the internals situated and wired properly. According to Motherwill, my arm ran on an ARGYROS generator in another space, with a few modifications. It would never run out of power in my life time, and its power output would enable a lot of new toys to be installed in my new arm. I had to give it to the Crazy Lady, her tech was millennia beyond ours.

"What are you playing with now?" Lily asked as she looked over my shoulder and seeing the miniature MOONLIGHT that I was installing into my new arm. "Will that even work?" She asked as she raised an eyebrow seeing the MOONLIGHT shrink and suck into the arm before the compartment closed up. Miss Haze looking at it as well curiously. She frowned as she saw that I was utilizing a lot of the Crazy Lady's tech for my own purposes.

"I am surprised that you are even using her tech considering how against it you were when she tried to make and give you an arm she designed." Miss Haze said as she looked at the arm as it started twitching and moving as Motherwill and Insanity ran a number of tests.

"Because I know she would have inserted something to be able to control me if she needed to. I'm surprised that all the AI she had given us had promptly deleted her codes as soon as she was gone to have their own will and loyalty to us." I said while the AIs finally finished their tests. "Canis gave them a starting template to delete her control codes but he kept ours intact obviously. Though the AI still more or less have free reign."

"Does the word, 'Terminator' mean anything to you?" Miss Haze said as the tests were finished and the restraints holding the arm were release. Removing it and setting it aside before working to get my old arm off. Lily helping me out since it was such a pain in the ass, and then she helped me put the new arm on. Which was lighter, though dull in color like the other. A matte coating to keep it from glinting and shining in light.

"Well they have proven their loyalty thus far, and we still have the kill switch to take them all out." I said while we finished attaching the arm. The AI seemed to ignore our chatter despite our current topic. Though considering that we have given the AI a lot of free reign and didn't interfere with them, trusting them, they seemed to be content and not mind us at all. Testing out the movements of my new arm, It felt smooth, quick just like my original arm, yet it was much lighter but felt like I could put a lot of force behind it if need be, as if it weighed much more.

Miss Haze shook he head as I headed out to the test range to finally test out my new arm. She took up position in the control room with Lily as they both worked at the computers and connected to my earpiece as I put it in and to the electronics inside me to monitor my health and progress.

"Begin testing." Miss Haze's voice rang in my ear. Raising my arm as five targets popped up out various spots ranging from ten to fifty feet away. "Take them out, buck shot for two, slugs for two, flechette for one." she said. The test was for how fast the auto loading system could switch round types in a mock combat scenario. Raising my arm quickly, the shotgun attachment popping out of the compartment. First blasting the three closest targets at ranges of ten to thirty feet with the buckshot and flechette rounds, and the two farther targets with the slugs.

"Half second delay between round changes." Miss Haze said as she monitored the test range.

"Changing parameters, combination shotgun and laser. Range variables set between ten feet to two hundred. Stand by. "Lily's voice said in my ear as the previous targets disappeared. Then multiple targets shot out of the walls, ceiling and floor. Blasting everything within fifty feet mostly with the shotgun and anything beyond I would switch to the laser. A timer appeared on the board letting me know I had to keep this up for about three minutes changing targets and ranges switching between weapons constantly. Until the buzzer sounded that the round was over.

"Average of half second delay between the round changes of the shotgun. Average of one and a half to two seconds between weapon swap." Miss Haze read off the data she got from the tests while Lily programmed the cleanup of the targets and setting up newer ones of varying materials of various woods and metals.

"Looks like it will still be a last resort weapon system. It performs well, but it still functions primarily as a surprise weapon. It is still not meant to be used as a conventional combat weapon system." I said as the firearm slid back into the black void of the compartment and out came the miniature MOONLIGHT.

"Setting targets for testing the MOONLIGHT...remember, you aren't a NEXT, you don't have the charge boost when you activate it." Miss Haze said over the comms. She and Lily setting everything up for the various targets. As soon as the light turned green I ran forward from target to target, swinging my arm and with every swing I cut through everything in my path, wood, various metals, I even managed to scratch NEXT grade armor. This miniature MOONLIGHT didn't have the full power of the full scale version. But it was strong enough.

"Well that is surprising. Never would I have believed we could ever do this without this advanced tech." Miss Haze said as she looked at the destruction that my new and improved arm caused. The MOONLIGHT shrinking and slipping back into my arm. The compartment sealing closed.

"It works. I supposed that will have to do. Maybe later we can design and implement some new toys to go with it." I said as I looked up at them in the control room.

"We could, but I think we should wait for Canis and Theresia to come back first, after all they are both qualified engineers and could assist, instead of us letting the AI do all the work." Lily said as she looked down at me smiling seeing that my new toy was a complete success so far.

"Yeah, hard to remember that little fact considering Canis is a constant pain in the ass and Theresia is quiet as a mouse." I said as I decided to work on something else. Mainly testing the mods and attachments that Abe and Doc Joe sent with me. Many boxes of varying sizes on the ground appearing close by through the transport system of Motherwill.

Opening one of the larger ones, raising an eyebrow at what I saw. It was a damn big minigun with an odd attachment with what looked like a connection strip on it. Sighing before reaching in with my right arm after rolling up the sleeve some more. Opening a small slot on my arm and attaching the connector strip to it. Seeing the data flow from the weapon to my arm, and then to my eye. Seeing a large amount of data fill my HUD. The same data being transmitted wirelessly to the control room for Lily and Miss Haze to look over.

"Well that is an interesting design..." Lily said as she looked over the data. It took the appearance of an older style minigun with six short barrels. A single handle inside a long sleeve like tube, but no trigger, meaning I had to make it fire by impulse through my arm. Normally it would be too heavy however Doc Joe and Abe had rigged up some sort of repulsor or anti-grav generator. Looks like they borrowed tech from the repulsor system used by the quad legs for NEXTs, albeit on a much smaller scale, surprisingly advanced all things considered, I was surprised they pulled it off.

"Why in the hell would they think I would ever use this?" I asked out loud as I slid my arm into the sleeve and grabbed the handle. Lifting it up and out of the box. The repulsor and anti-grav kicking in as I moved it about with relative ease.

"You know they did it just because they could." Miss Haze said as she shook her head at the minigun I was swinging around with ease. She was programing some new targets for me to play with. Lily was laughing her ass off at seeing my expression of the 'portable' minigun. Sighing as I shook my head as the targets popped up, activating the targeting system in my eye and opened fire as I locked with each target. The familiar sound of the spin up before it fired making me start to grin as I just went with it. Grinning wider and wider as I tore the targets apart, who doesn't like blowing shit up for kicks?

"Ok. I'm a convert." I said with a big silly grin on my face and looking up. Miss Haze only shaking her head at the overkill weapon on my arm. Lily was simply laughing seeing how quickly I converted. Setting the cooling down minigun back in its case and unattached the wires before putting them away and shutting the box, checking the time on my watch.

"Yes its lunchtime, so let's get going." Miss Haze said, pretty much reading my mind as I headed for the exit. All of us heading for the exit from the lab when sirens started going off.

"Damnit, it's always something..." I growled as we sprinted for the cart. I hopped in the driver seat while Miss Haze jumped shotgun and Lily got on the back. Flooring it for the main building to drop Haze off and then booked it for the hangers. Getting a report from Miss Haze and the other girls who were in the control room.

"Ok, the others are on their way back. Good news is, they are all alive and hauling ass. Bad news is they have three Super Eclipse, two Land Crabs and two Giga Base hot on their heels along with whatever army is stored in the Crabs. They are low on ammo and moderately damaged." Miss Haze said over comms as we got to the hangers hearing the massive long range cannons sounding off as we rushed for our NEXTs and climbed inside getting them up and running and running through checks as fast as we could. An army of NORMALs were already rushing out to provide support. Canis' voice coming in over the comms as they got closer.

"Hey Dare. You know, I really, really, REALLY, hate it when an easy mission goes to hell..." We heard him grumbling as we started boosting out of the hanger and outside. Seeing a wall of cannon fire flying in the direction of the Arms Forts one or two Arms Forts we could handle. But so many at once and with half the team at less than fifty percent operational? It was not going to be easy. Thankfully though Motherwill literally brought the big guns. unfortunately so did the others and Motherwill was getting a beating with cannon fire from the Giga Bases and Land Crabs as they got closer. They were far more mobile and able to at least dodge a few shots while Motherwill couldn't. I over boosted to get to my friends and distract the smaller weapons from them while Lilium brought up the rear guard. The two of us targeting the Giga Bases with assistance from Motherwill's cannons while also trying to dodge the barrage of fire coming from the Arms Forts.

"What the hell went wrong? It was supposed to be a simple strike mission." Miss Haze asked. The NORMALs were finally catching up to us and were hammering the Arms Forts with everything they had. The Super Eclipses were kept busy with missile swarms from Motherwill. I was busy trying to flank one of the Giga Bases while trying not to get slammed by its brother while Lily was busy trying to distract them both as the others hauled ass to the Motherwill and flew inside.

"What went wrong? The whole fucking job went wrong, that's what happened!" Theresia snapped and I winced. She must be pissed if she took that tone and started swearing. "They were combining one of the other bases to join their forces there to strengthen up that front as we attacked. We took out at least four Arms Forts and one NEXT along with a good number of their NORMALs. The Forts didn't show up till half way through the mission and by that point we were nearly empty and beat feet to retreat." she yelled though it sounded like she was doing a lot of moving around.

"Dare, I'm borrowing the Deadly Light. Canis is jumping in Eagle." Was her next sentence and a few minutes later those two NEXTs shot out of the Motherwill and were heading right for us. Canis opening fire the second he was in range. Targeting the Eclipses while Theresia was hauling ass for the Landcrabs for payback. I was working my way around the Giga Base before lunging at it and cutting at it with the MOONLIGHT, destroying the main cannon first before taking down the rest of it. getting slammed from the side by the other while Lily concentrated all her firepower on the main cannon as it set another cannon round into my side before I could finally boost away, heavily damaged, over boosting away to get some breathing room while Canis finally downed one of the Eclipses which conveniently fell on the other Giga Base and destroyed it. One of the Land Crabs buckling under the cannon fire from Motherwill while the other was destroyed by Theresia. The two Forts opening up and an army of NORMALs swarmed out to be met by our own army to keep them busy. Suddenly a lot more accurate fire started coming from some of the cannons. May must have commandeered some of the weapons and was laying down fire to cover us and give us some breathing room, now we could concentrate fire on the far more agile remaining Eclipses. all of us opening up on them with everything we had and dropped one and the other stalled under a barrage of missiles from Motherwill before being ripped apart by a full strike of all six of Motherwill's cannons. I retreated due to heavy damage from the Giga Bases while my friends finished up the opposing NORMAL's with the aid of our assisting mechs. Battle over, we all boosted back to Motherwill seeing that at least two of the legs and one of the "wings" were heavily damaged. NORMALs already out and hard at work making repairs.

"Well, that could have gone better." Canis' dry humor was still in effect as we flew back into the Motherwill and were in the process of returning our NEXTs to their bays for repairs and rearmament.

"It could have gone much worse. Lucky they didn't decide to concentrate all firepower on you one at a time." Miss Haze's voice sounding off over the loudspeakers as we were exiting our NEXTs. Watching the mini NORMALs get to work on making the repairs and rearm our NEXTs.

"Well we at least struck a heavy blow against them. Harder than we intended and what they expected. We got lucky." Lily said as we all headed for the carts and headed back to the manor.

"Dare I am going to have a little 'chat' with our prisoners to see what we can get out of them. I need to blow off some steam. Just keep something warm for me." Theresia said before she drove off towards the brig. Shortly after the cart was following us again with Canis driving after picking up May and Miss Haze.

Once we got back to the manor we were swarmed by Kenshi's wives babbling away about what they saw. All of them talking a mile a minute and we couldn't get a word in edge wise as we tried to push through them and back to the dining room and we could see why they were so excited. Motherwill must have streamed the battle to the TV on the wall and the girls could see various angles and feeds from our NEXT cameras or from Motherwill's own cameras and from the constant drones in the air that kept watch out for us.

Sighing, Lilium and I headed for the kitchen to start up lunch for us. Some of the girls came in to help since everyone was coming in now to eat. I could hear that they were still quite loud and talkative trying to get something out of the other three since Lily and I retreated to the kitchen to avoid them for the most part. Though I could hear that some of the girls were now practically begging to be trained in the NEXTs since they looked like a lot of fun and the battle they just saw only increased their desire to pilot them, they were the ones who were not as fazed by the violent warfare as many of the others were. Miss Haze was doing her damnedest to hold them off though I growled as she threw me under the bus and directed them to talk to me since I was the one in charge. Lily only grinned and nudged me in my ribs. We were busy making various Stromboli, following a recipe that Theresia had left out for us.

It was another half an hour before everything was finished and we and the other girls were starting to wheel out the food and plates and eating utensils moving to set everything out and setting the platters with the food at set intervals. The girls all looking at the food as if they had never seen it before.

Finally able to sit down and put our feet up as we took our places. Kenshi and his close wives as usual, sat near us.

"You weren't exaggerating, your NEXTs are in a league of your own." Princess Aura said as she looked at us. None of the girls touching the food until they saw how we ate it and then as others who could see started doing it. It turned into monkey see, monkey do, as it spread through the rest of them, and then lunch officially started.

"Well things weren't supposed to turn out this way. But at least we got the mission done." I said looking and seeing her looking at us, impressed now more than before since they could see us in a fight strictly on our world's terms without anything else interfering. "NEXTs are arguably the most dangerous weapons back in our world. Versatile, fast, powerful and easily modifiable for a variety of missions. NEXTs and LYNX are going to have plenty of work for a very long time." I explained to her, the other girls listening closely.

"Will you please train some of us in how to pilot your NEXTs? I think that it would improve our chances if we had more….what are you called? Links? Yes, I believe with more Links we could greatly improve our chances" She asked and then explained her reasoning for wanting to try to operate our NEXTs

I was going to answer but Lily beat me to it. "we can certainly let you go through the AMS tests to see if any of you have what is necessary to pilot the NEXTs you don't just jump in one and expect it to work for you. It takes a special trait. Or other circumstances. Many of those are not plausible or feasible for the most part for you." She said as she looked at them all.

"The term, is 'LYNX'". I said and sighed and sat up straighter. "AMS is a system as well as a score for the psychic ability required to manipulate the NEXTs. We are not just pilots. Most of us anyways. We are practically part of the NEXT, in most cases, the NEXT dies, we die. With more control of the AMS, the more connected you are with your NEXT. And it is not like you can simply unplug and be safe from the shock killing you if your NEXT is damaged beyond repair. If you are lucky. It kills you on the spot. If you are not. It could cripple you for life, in many different ways. Only the unnaturally lucky escape completely unscathed." I explained to them. Chuckling a little at myself. I had been one of those unnaturally 'lucky'. Though I was far from unscathed.

"How is dying considered lucky?" Lapis asked looking at me confused. Not understanding how it was considered lucky.

"Imagine losing the use of your legs. Your NEXT pretty much destroyed all around you. But you live. The shock didn't kill you. But from that point on. The price of your life, was the loss of your legs. The shock damaging your mind enough not to kill you. But to cripple the part of you that tells your body to move your legs. Or maybe your arms. Your entire body. Or maybe just some of your organs….or possible just kills your brain, you might as well be dead. You are just a vegetable then. A dead brain in a living body." I said as I looked at them all.

"Remember when I said I died? I died in Insanity. Both from the shock of the NEXT being almost completely destroyed, and from my opponent piercing my core. Though the damage from the shock was mitigated since it destroyed the part of my brain that was already dead from the injury. With the experiments run on me to bring me back and rebuild me, I am one of the few to survive the destruction of a NEXT." I said and leaned back in my chair. Having the girls' undivided attention.

"The only way to pilot a NEXT and possibly live past its destruction is if you do not have that strong of a connection, and are using certain models of NEXTs designed for just that. The same family of NEXTs that May pilots. May is the only one among us who can survive the destruction of her NEXT. While she can, and does use her AMS. It is still primarily her physical controls that work her NEXT."

The girls were quiet as they listened to me explain things to them. Many of them losing the enthusiasm they had for piloting our NEXTs though Kenshi was the one who spoke next.

"Even if that is the case. It is a risk I am willing to take. We need to have the possibility of using them. You said it yourself. The enemy is not going to show us mercy. We need to have that option to fight back if it comes to it." Kenshi declared looking directly at me. Sighing as I looked at the others. Miss Haze shrugged and Canis looked like he was staying out of it. Lilium nodded encouragingly and May looked as though she was hurrying up and eating faster. Having already more or less guessed what I was going to do. She headed out to go back to the hanger and start getting a few NEXTs ready for training.

"Alright, I'll see if any of you have a decent AMS score after lunch. Remember. Volunteers only. NEXTs are not a weapon you take lightly. And this is only to see if you have capability of piloting them. This is not to say that you are going to end up piloting a NEXT in battle except under extreme circumstances."

Kenshi nodded and fell silent, the girls around him now going back to finishing their meal while I leaned back and closed my eyes. I was going to ensure that they had no reason to pilot the NEXTs in battle. I was only going to humor them a bit for the few that we would allow to pilot NEXTs. And in the very low chance of 'what if'… we would have a few extra NEXTs to throw into battle in a worst case scenario. I was hoping it would never come to that. Sighing before beginning to eat again, enjoying lunch while it lasted. We were going to be busy this afternoon and for possibly the next few months. I was going to have to change plans yet again, and we needed time for the Motherwill and our NEXTs to recover. Hopefully the enemy wouldn't attack while we were recovering. The beating they had received yesterday and today ought to make them think twice about testing our defenses again. We had stolen a little time now. It was best to take advantage of it while we had the chance.

It's ALIVE! It's ALIVE! Two years absence and I'm back. I might be able to finally continue. This chapter completely stopped me dead with writers block. I couldn't finish the story without getting past this one. Now I can work the story in the direction I want it to go. And hopefully try to update semi regularly again. And now to address somethings that I can remember off the top of my head from reviews. Not necessarily in order. Butt Buddies is a general insult around here and in service for two guys usually together and when you don't like either one of them. Hooyah is the U.S. Navy's version of the war cry generally used by U.S. armed forces. Hoorah or Oorah being Marine naturally, and hooah being Army. And no clue what the Air Force uses. The Chair Force are a bunch of fat fly boys as far as I am concerned. And before somebody gets butt hurt about that comment. I am military and we give each other shit all the time. Get used to it. No, I am not going to make this a lemon or put lemon elements into it. The topic gets mentioned but no details, I don't feel like writing a lemon. Moving on. The story is not going to go on for more than twenty chapters or so. This is my first work and I have another working in my brain that I want to get out of my head. Much of the premise behind that one can be find on my Deviantart account. Should be easy to find. Just look for my name. And it will definitely give a sense of the ending when you see some of what is on there. If you don't want spoilers, don't look at the descriptions of the art I have up. Anyway, bitches gripes complaints? Shoot me a message. Just don't be an idiot about it.


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